Cometh the Rose
by ForASecondThereWe'dWon
Summary: "Maybe, had she recently been involved in fewer alarming incidents, she would've been able to join her friends in getting a regular summer job, but the truth was that nothing as tedious as a fast food fryer or as safe as a day camp counsellor was really Betty's speed anymore." Summer's coming and Betty goes out to get a job. Penelope Blossom's door is the one she knocks on.
1. Blossom

I

Betty touched her sweaty neck, fingers passing over a limp strand of hair, unintentionally rolling it along―the way a bathing suit rolls when you try to take it off with your skin still wet from swimming. She'd worn her hair up to look professional, and also because she'd read that people behaved more sympathetically towards those who somehow mirrored their own appearance; there was nothing like hunting a serial killer to inspire an interest in psychology. The reason for the escaped hair was that this wasn't Betty's regular spiral-ponytailed updo, but the more sophisticated, vaguely European styling of one Penelope Blossom, and frankly, Betty hadn't left herself enough time to get it right before she'd had to head over for her interview. _Meeting_ , technically, but seeing as she was hoping to finagle a job out of it, Betty chose to see it as an interview. Her hair also would've stood a better chance at arriving intact had Betty not walked to her destination in the heat. And yet it had been her only option because she didn't have a ride. Because she hadn't asked for one. Because she didn't want anyone to know where she was going. Taking her hand from her neck, Betty abandoned the stray lock to its swoon.

It was still May, but already hot (evidenced by her hair, her sweat, her almost total-brain longing for a vanilla milkshake from Pop's). Despite there being weeks of school still to go―sticky days of wilting handouts and forearms smacking against condensation-coated faux-wood desks―many of her classmates had already secured summer jobs. Good old-fashioned traditional parents called it the kids' good old-fashioned traditional sense of responsibility. A skittish post-traumatic few called it the lingering, malevolent influence of evil that had endowed the younger generation with a need for stability and preparedness which the previous one had not felt so urgently. Betty called it simple economic stagnation; the Twilight Drive-In had never been replaced, forcing Riverdale's teens to flock further afield for entertainment, adding the price of gas to the price of a movie ticket.

As much as any of them acted like they were above the others in class, at cheerleading practice, or on the football field, they weren't proud people by nature, enabling them to comfortably settle into the 'I'll take whatever I can get' summer job mentality. Archie and Jughead would be going back to work for Fred. Veronica was working on securing some kind of business co-op that she'd promised to explain in more detail once she'd bullied into submission whoever it was that needed bullying. The rest of Betty's friends and acquaintances would become the familiar faces behind the counter at the grocery store checkout and atop the diminutive lifeguard tower at the public pool, parcelled out and playing at adulthood. The fact that they were all so grown up, and had done the growing together, made her proud to know them. Maybe, had she recently been involved in fewer alarming incidents, she would've been able to join them, but the truth was that nothing as tedious as a fast food fryer or as safe as a day camp counsellor was really Betty's speed anymore. Spitting, sizzling oil and screaming, sunburnt children didn't align with her new standards for risk and difficulty.

Where Alice thought she was today, Betty wasn't sure. If she managed to get what she was coming for, she'd need to tell her mother something. Something that sounded harmless and reasonable. Betty pondered as she walked, turning off the sidewalk―ill-kept so far from the nearest cookie cutter crescent―onto a long gravel driveway. Her hot, tormented feet struggled against the hold of her leather sandals, so like the grip of a straining human hand. Maybe she'd say she'd gotten a job as an online tutor? That way, she could plausibly slip out for each shift and take her laptop, perhaps a book or two, on the premise that she could tutor from anywhere. But would her mother look her up online? Hmm. Betty could claim the sessions were anonymous, some kind of precaution the online academy had implemented to minimize harassing behaviour from disgruntled students. Alice wouldn't like the idea of her daughter not receiving the maximum possible credit for something she was doing, but the cyber-safety aspect would definitely get her approval. That _might_ work. It would still be a lie, but a lie that allowed for elements of truth: the pay would be reliable and the labour absolutely, unquestionably anonymous.

Betty took a breath through her mouth, lungs impatient for the sweltering air's meager offering of oxygen, and stared up at the stately residence before her. It was smaller than Thistlehouse, which had in turn been smaller than Thornhill, yet Penelope Blossom's chosen dwellings all shared an arcane, impenetrable feeling―something more profound, earthier than an aura―like the seat of a banished queen who'd committed a wrong still in the process of fading into legend. Betty thought Cheryl would've called it ' _je ne sais quoi_.' Betty called it the perfect place to establish her newest secret. She patted her hair with all the cautious horror of putting one's hand into a dark corner sure to contain a cobweb. Then, she knocked on the door.

The click of some high heels simply _sounds_ expensive. Hearing this sort of tapping approach from the other side of the door, Betty straightened her spine. It felt a little cooler anyway, that shallow stream of sweat down the center of her back distanced from the fabric of her shirt and searching for a breeze. The lady of the house herself opened the door.

"Ah," she said without evident enthusiasm, "Betty."

"Hi, Mrs. Blossom."

She wasn't sure whether she should put her hand out to shake, oscillating between this being a business meeting and the fact that theirs was not a recent acquaintance―that they were, in fact, family. Penelope settled it herself, keeping one hand gripping the door while the other brushed the empty air inside the hall, gesturing Betty in.

"Your house is…" Betty's attention was drawn away as her blinking eyes adjusted to the much gloomier interior and she noticed heavy, jewel-toned still lifes, an imposing wooden staircase. "… beautiful."

"Yes," Penelope agreed, leading Betty into the front sitting room, "Thicket Hall suits my tastes for now. Not that I've had much choice after my wayward daughter forced me out of my two previous homes."

Betty kept her mouth shut. Siding with Cheryl, as she privately wanted to do, wouldn't help her working relationship with Penelope. They sat in statement antique chairs, angled towards one another. Penelope crossed her ankles demurely.

"There was character in the bones of this place," the woman continued, unprompted. Betty wondered how much conversation she was regularly a part of. No matter how lovely, this building still represented banishment, not choice, as she'd mentioned. "But I've had much of it restored to ensure the comfort of myself and my… guests," Penelope fumbled. Betty assumed it wasn't so easy to gloss over the way she earned her income when she was seated next to the daughter of a former client.

Perhaps to cover her awkward moment, the hostess poured each of them a cup of tea. The guest sweetened hers with sugar cubes that sparkled like diamonds in the room's yellow light, artificial illumination refracting off warm wood furnishings.

"The artwork is especially striking," Betty offered, stirring her cup with a miniature spoon. Penelope's eyes followed hers to a painting of swollen golden pears on the opposite wall. She smiled coyly.

"I'm glad you appreciate it. I find the subtlest symbolism can be so powerful."

Betty looked at her quizzically. Penelope nodded at the painting.

"Look again. The curve of the subject matter…" her hands stroked the air illustratively, "… the appearance of perfect ripeness… the inherent association between a fruit's skin and a woman's flesh…" Betty found herself blushing. "This house… these rooms are the inside of a music box. The rich velvet curtains parting to display an art form more passionate than opera or ballet."

The nervous sip Betty took of her tea burned her tongue. Penelope stared at her like she could see straight through to her bones, making Betty feel studied, like the painting.

"I must again express my astonishment at hearing from you, Betty. Your call was unexpected, and I am not often surprised." She cocked an eyebrow.

"I was serious on the phone," Betty insisted, settling her cup back in its saucer and folding her hands in her lap.

"I wouldn't have invited you here if I didn't believe that," Penelope responded primly. "From what I've seen of you firsthand and the jealousy-inspired stories Cheryl has regaled me with in the past, I think you are a young woman to be taken very seriously indeed." This seemed to be praise, but Betty didn't feel right to smile. Getting along with this woman would not entail becoming friends. "It so happens that there is a way we might be able to do something for each other, as you suggested."

Penelope gave Betty another assessing glance, so she nodded.

"Please, go on."

Taking a swallow from her own teacup, Penelope kept Betty anxious, pausing several long moments before speaking.

"I'm having no trouble negotiating the needs of my older clientele." The woman gave her a look that said _we both know what I'm talking about_. "However, after you contacted me, I realized how lucrative it could be to provide a little something for a younger demographic."

Betty shifted in her chair, hot skin not exactly agreeing with the rich material of the seat's upholstery.

"My talking about money doesn't bother you, does it?" Penelope asked, obviously trying to account for Betty's movement.

"Not if it doesn't bother _you_ ," she assured her.

"Good, because we'll need to converse bluntly about far more sensitive topics than that."

"Of course," Betty allowed, rotating her cup in its saucer and reaching for its delicate handle.

"Your own experience involves webcamming, correct?"

Betty breathed in sharply, leg muscles tensing for fight or flight. When she looked over, Penelope's gaze was waiting to be caught. Inches below those cryptic eyes, her red mouth twitched up at the corners.

"How did you know that?" It wasn't easy to keep from sounding demanding. Betty had shared this secret with _no one_.

"I'm a Blossom, Miss Cooper. By blood, by marriage, it doesn't matter." She shrugged narrow shoulders. "We always do our research before expanding our enterprise. Anyway, what I have in mind for you is not so very different from your current pursuits."

Heart shuddering like an earthquake's tremor, Betty joined Penelope in abandoning the tea tray and winding their way upstairs. All the while, the mistress of Thicket Hall spiraled closer to the graphic truths Betty both yearned and feared to discuss. She would come to work for Penelope. Yes. Not in the maple syrup business, but in the sideline the woman's late husband would never have approved of (which said a lot, Betty thought, considering he'd committed filicide). Yes. She would be paid discretely, in cash, and their contract would be purely verbal, to eliminate the hazard of a paper trail. Yes. They would keep silent about today's meeting, the previous phone call, and all future interactions. Both would firmly deny anything beyond a passing acquaintanceship if questioned. This was of the utmost importance, as what Betty would be doing―what Penelope would be paying her to do―was incontestably illegal. Yes, yes, and yes.

Penelope opened a bedroom door to show Betty her room. They stared into it from the hall. Already, it felt so clandestine to Betty.

"I'll hire someone to install a sliding brass window in the door," her employer explained, tracing the grain with a finger of her gloved hand. "Your clients will all have paid in advance and will have control of opening and closing the window themselves. As you will always be facing away for reasons of anonymity, you will never rise to open the hatch yourself."

"Right," Betty agreed, tingling with the thrill that she was actually going through with her plan. Who or what was guiding her? Mrs. Blossom? The Cooper 'darkness'? Some twisted version of teenage rebellion that had taken a wrong turn in the pitch black of her subconscious?

"Essentially," Penelope abridged, crossing her arms, "it's a peep show. A little out of fashion, perhaps, but in this house, I embrace the glories of history." She eyed Betty. "I won't ask you what your own reasons are."

Betty held her stare, likewise uninterested in how Penelope Blossom got started in her current employment and determined not to seem any more inviting of questions than Thicket Hall's owner. Each time she entered this house in future, she would be donning a persona. Playing a part. Leaving the specifics of her identity up to her observers. Better to start now.

It felt like a natural place to conclude their meeting (interview), and the pair shook hands.

"I'll be putting out some feelers, sourcing clients for you with the utmost prudence, then I'll call and let you know when you'll be expected." The way Penelope spoke, she might have been finalizing a business proposition of perfect legality. Betty doubted she'd done much of that in her adult life. "In the meantime," her new employer added, skimming Betty's possibly pink shoulders with her eyes, "try not to get sunburnt. Your skin is art now, Elizabeth."

"I understand."

"You may see yourself out."

Betty halted, half-turned away.

"You're not coming down to finish your tea?"

"I have… an appointment." Penelope smiled that coy smile once more, gaze shifting sideways, deeper into the hallway filled with closed doors. _Oh_ , Betty thought, trying to stop her eyes from widening like a cartoon character's. "Prominent businessman. Gives him an unspeakable thrill to be kept waiting. They all have their little quirks. You'll see."

Was that a warning or a promise, Betty wondered, damp palm dragging along the thick wooden banister as she descended. The messenger bag she'd carried because buying a briefcase felt a little too _Working Girl_ was next to the chair she'd sat in, clunking when she picked it up. Though she hadn't exactly known the position she'd be applying for, Betty _had_ had an idea that it wouldn't require a resume, so instead of a sheaf of papers, she'd used other items to pad the bag (and thereby her alibi) before she'd left her house. One of these was a bottle of 75SPF sunscreen and she squirted some into her palm, viscous and coconut-y, then stowed the bottle and opened the front door one-handed. The air was as hot as it had been when she'd gone in, maybe hotter, so Betty loitered on the step and smacked the sunscreen into place. She leaned down to rub her greasy palms on her thighs, then cupped one hand over her eyes, squinting up towards the sky. _Never_ , Betty recalled being taught as a child, _stare directly at the sun_.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Dominion of Sweet Pea

**Author's Note:**

Thank you for following me into my second Sweet Pea/Betty (Sweet B? Swetty?) story! The early support has been wonderful and very appreciated. This chapter introduces the other half of our pair and I hope you enjoy it!

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

* * *

II

If only his friends could see him now, strolling the lawns like some kind of _Gatsby_ interloper, drinking warm Gatorade instead of chilled champagne and propelling a rusted red wheelbarrow instead of a gorgeous daffodil-coloured Duesenberg. Sweet Pea had found it in a crummy old garden shed―the wheelbarrow, not the Gatorade―which he'd raided after his employer failed to be even the smallest fucking bit helpful in getting him set up with supplies. Northsiders were one thing, but Penelope Blossom was really out of touch with the real world. His friends would've lost their shit if they'd known he was working for her this summer, Toni's girlfriend especially. Which was exactly why Sweet Pea hadn't told them. It was easy not to, since being a chatterbox wasn't something he was known for. Switchblade, yes. Smalltalk, no.

It had been a freak, right place, right time type of thing. After Fangs had been shot, it had made the entire Serpent population feel goddamn awful to see him bumping around unevenly with his crutch. Most of them felt that way right from the start; a select few were encouraged into sympathy after Sweet Pea… convinced them. With everyone living in trailers (it was a fucking trailer park, so there was nothing to be done about that), Sweet Pea's best bud had to choose between struggling up and down rickety-ass steps or staying indoors in one place like a pathetic invalid. Fangs had talked to Sweet Pea about the hospital, giving him a crystal clear indication that he was done memorizing walls and counting the specks on ceiling tiles. Toni wanted to fix the situation, Cheryl Blossom had gotten hotheaded and demanding to back her up, and Jughead had decided, since becoming Serpent King, that this was the ideal chance to give their territory some community atmosphere or some shit like that; mostly, when Jughead's mouth opened, Sweet Pea's ears closed. The result was Sunnyside Garden, as they'd christened it over bottles of cheap, foul beer that had made his mouth taste like the inside of a sock. It wasn't a hell of a lot, but there was a scraggly row of daisies coming up and a handful of tomato plants, plus a bench (a sturdy one) for Fangs to sit on and receive the old fresh air cure. And it looked fucking nice, alright? Sort of gave the Serpents something of their own.

Rewinding from the finished project, Sweet Pea would've found himself outside a chain store garden centre in early spring, tossing bags of dirt into the back of a borrowed truck. That was when Penelope Blossom had come along and given him the kind of assessing look that, in his experience, usually merited a firm right hook. He had been considering it―not less because she was an adult woman, but more because he knew she'd given Toni a hard time―when she'd suddenly offered him a job. He'd known dick-all about 'landscaping' as she'd called it, but he knew that all she'd seen was a rough-looking Southside kid with dirty hands who wasn't wheezing, despite having heaved a dozen solid bags of soil into a truck bed. That was fine. What he'd seen in her was an ignorant snob with a garden gnome called 'prejudice' shoved up her ass. Did Sweet Pea want to take her money all summer long? Hey, he could think of worse things.

The joke was on… both of them, as it turned out, because he was learning how much he actually liked being outside―like, in nature. The grass here was Super Mario green. Penelope Blossom's property had no neighbouring houses and was as packed with trees and gardens as the basement of the Whyte Wyrm was with rats when they forgot to set traps on the regular. It wasn't like the scrub dominating the trailer park, nor the over-manicured beds of suburbia. Or, if it was supposed to turn into that last thing, Sweet Pea's employer had a nasty shock coming to her at summer's end. In the couple of weeks he'd been working for her, he'd hardly seen the woman, and he wasn't a goddamn dunce: there was no way he was going to actively seek her out begging for instructions. Besides, the one rule he knew to exist was that he not enter her house. Fucking wacko. As if he wanted to. He'd keep doing the work, making his money, and going home just as sweaty and dirty as every other Southside kid who'd accepted the inevitability of menial labour from June to August. Without a boss around to supervise him, the days felt like they belonged to Sweet Pea.

Mowing the lawns had been the first godawful chore―a pain in his ass as sizeable as the hole in the wall of the History hallway boys' bathroom at Southside High (RIP). Once every trip across the yard didn't feel like exploring the virgin jungles of Jumanji, Sweet Pea got the lay of the land and embraced his dominion. Jughead's kingdom may have had drunks and pool tables, but Sweet Pea's had roses and… roses. And more roses. It started to freak him out, every time he yanked the most monstrous weeds from a sloping bed and found more of the same flower, or kept watch over new growth he'd discovered, only to see it sprout thorns and twist tight buds into thick, saturated petals. On an afternoon he'd delayed his executively-decided-upon snack break and caught his dangling shoelace on even more of the stupid things, Sweet Pea had ripped a large vine out of the ground. Unluckily, Penelope had waltzed past later, seen the plant scrap lying on the ground, and screeched like a banshee, so he'd had to lie to her face about finding it that way, which was really no hardship. Lesson learned; after that, he always took his breaks on time to prevent the unparalleled grumpiness that was a direct result of hunger.

Since the nature of his natural work required that he keep both eyes on the ground (except when he was trying to cultivate the ability to move his eyes independently, like he'd seen one time on TV), Sweet Pea balanced it out by spending his breaks lying flat on his back. While he sweat into the mown grass, encouraging the blades to stain the back of his neck green, he'd eat something with seeds, apples mostly, then sneakily bury the core. He couldn't help himself; the temptation to utterly fuck up Rose Land with a surprise fruit tree was too great. Slim chance of rapid results, but he knew how to play the long game. Also, he always forgot where he'd buried them, so it wasn't like he could check for progress. Anyhow, the sky, his alternate workday view. It was pretty great to lie down somewhere Sweet Pea didn't need to worry about broken glass. Without his Serpents jacket to protect him, that was important. He did see snake shapes in the clouds sometimes, then they'd dissolve again and he'd be back on Blossom property with no gang and no jacket. No one but himself.

Lonely? Not exactly. The hardest thing was only being able to sketch a shitty half-picture of what his days were like when he was back in his own neighbourhood. Working out here was like working for a Disney villain on a moon colony, and he sort of figured he wasn't supposed to talk about any of it; his presence always seemed to make Penelope kind of nervous, the way a loose end or a blabbermouth makes a mob boss nervous before he sends one of his goons to blow the guy away. Well, it wasn't like _that_. She didn't scare him, the situation was just strange. Keeping his eyes on the ground definitely didn't hurt though. In the mobster movies, it was always the guys who didn't see nothin' who lasted the longest. Sweet Pea measured his own employee lifespan in dollars and pictured laying the bills end to end the length of the property.

It was the damn roses that made him look up.

He'd stayed away from the house for as long as he could, tidying the outer gardens with rough justice and two-handed tugs of anything that didn't belong, but eventually, he had to tackle the gardens lining the shaded walls of Thicket Hall. Here, with the old brick as a backdrop, climbing roses had flourished, winding up wooden trellises. Sweet Pea was examining these structures, one by one, eyeing them from the ground upwards for broken boards or rot, when he looked up high enough to see arms pushing a window open directly above him.

Instinctively, he hid, launching himself against the house amongst the flowers. It was stupid, and as his heavy boots dug into the dirt, he glared at the brick wall like it was a mirror and he was really glaring at himself. He worked here! He wasn't trespassing! He was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing! So, what? Was he startled? Scared? "Bullshit," Sweet Pea whispered to himself and stepped back, gaze rising like bubbles in a shaken soda.

There were the arms, still hanging out the window, leisurely draping down in perfect opposition to the way the roses had struggled their way up. Sweet Pea told himself he was just breathing hard because it was fucking hot, shade or no shade. Just a couple of standard, everyday arms. Anywhere else, they'd be normal. Here, at the dwelling of Penelope Blossom, they were odd. His employer always, _always_ wore a glove. The owner of these arms did not.

* * *

Betty had officially been an online English tutor for three weeks. Meaning that she had _unofficially_ been the anonymous star of the Thicket Hall peep show for three weeks, walking out to the edges of Riverdale coated in sunscreen. She was thinking of using her earnings to buy a car. It was something she considered while she was working, after her neck became too stiff to read. The worst thing was hearing them breathe―her clients. The opening of the viewing window made Betty tense up, but it was a mechanical sound, like a door lock or the press that printed copies of the _Register_. The breathing was very personal and, even though she couldn't see who the visitors were, they became far less anonymous to Betty than she suspected that she was to them. She didn't want to know what had some of these young men breathing so hard, concentrating instead on the mild annoyance resulting from the way their noisy exhalations threw off the pace of her reading. Betty was exploring classical literature and, honestly, not all of it was compelling; it was such a drag to have to reread passages, paragraphs, or whole pages of _Middlemarch_ because some perv was getting himself too worked up on the other side of the door.

Between clients was Betty's favourite time of day and she shifted and stretched like a figure drawing model between poses. She was art, after all. That was how Penelope Blossom had told her to see herself when she'd been hired. It was impossible for Betty, naturally curious, not to wonder what the paying peepers saw. What did they comprehend from her? What would they learn or make from it? She wasn't exactly a museum exhibit, but she still sort of wanted to know what her purpose was, not that she would be changing anything to strive towards that purpose. Since she'd started coming in to work, Betty had had a few awkward conversations with Penelope, wherein her employer hinted at her own clients' tastes and Betty sat stiffly, either not drinking her tea or gulping it in her nervousness, feeling both jarred and thankful that her entire job was to sit still. Nudity was simple in a way it had never seemed to her before. Penelope could keep her costumes and props and, hopefully, not tell Betty anything about them in future.

The strangest thing to happen so far, including the breathing and the uncomfortable chats, was that Betty was adjusting. The appointments still made her nervous―less nervous than webcamming had, because even though she had to show her bared body from the back, she didn't have to show her face―but she discovered she could mitigate that anxiety by staying at the house for hours each shift. Coming early gave her time to relax and get into whichever book she was reading. Penelope had warned her that she would only be paid for the appointment itself, yet Betty made enough from those that it was no trial to stretch out her time at 'work.' Her actually being at the house didn't seem to bother its owner who, Betty suspected, missed having her daughter around. Aside from the reminder about her pay, Betty had never been discouraged from hanging out in the room she'd been assigned.

When to come early or stay late was solved in a short phone call with Penelope, who meticulously scheduled Betty's entrances and exits around her own agenda so that no one ever saw her. Betty was deliberating about asking Thicket Hall's mistress for a key. Right now, the door was left open for her, which she was sure wasn't ideal. However, it wasn't as though Penelope would have halted her sessions to come down and unlock the door for Betty if she'd been forced to knock. That would defeat the whole point of her quiet coming and going. A key was serious though. It meant ownership, trust, and some stretch of permanence. Not exactly compatible with Betty's idea of her job as empowering, risky, and transitory. Yes, she had her own room, but she wasn't _living_ in it. In fact, she and the room were still working on their relationship―the closet relationship she'd had or ever planned on having in that house.

Ignoring the room's obvious flaw of having a hole through which teenage boys paid to see her naked, its only additional defect was that it heated up like an oven. Thicket Hall was an old house, which meant no air conditioning. Even nude, Betty was perpetually warmer than she would've liked to have been and started drinking enough water that she looked forward to sprinting down the hall on pee breaks. Still, she tolerated the heat for as long as she could until, one stifling day in June, she decided to wage war on the previously unbudgeable singular window her room possessed. The thing was swollen in its frame and painted over in places from past Band-Aid-style restorations designed to make things look better on the surface without fixing any of the problems underneath. Betty sweat more than ever shoving the thing open, but continuously panted to herself under her breath that it would be worth it for the fresh air. She'd waited until that side of the house was in shade and, when the window popped open, couldn't resist hanging her arms out. Closing her eyes, Betty laid her forehead on the sill, breathing.

* * *

To be continued...


	3. Honey

III

June pushed on―sticky, like the last squeeze of honey from a bottle―and although Betty's time at work was spent staring at the same three walls (never at the fourth, where the door and hatch were), she still saw changes.

The changes in herself were the first she recognized, having always been highly attuned to her inner world and a master of self-analysis. Working for Penelope required her to learn to accept her own naked self as company, but more was bared to Betty than just skin. While she'd been with Jughead, they'd had only one night together before she'd come home in a happy, woolly haze to find her mother sopping up a stranger's blood from their dining room floor. Things hadn't so much fallen apart between her and Jughead after that as just gone back to how they'd been prior to their frantic but sweet scene on the couch. It turned out that was the end of their relationship, not a sustainable revival of it. A consequence she hadn't been in the right mindset to consider at the time―admittedly caught up in yet another, though softer, post-Jughead heartbreak―was a lost opportunity to become more comfortable with her own body.

What a massive difference there was between one night in a dimly lit trailer under the hands of someone who cared about her and shift after shift in a mix of crystal white LED glow and daylight under the eyes of stranger. Unlike Penelope's, Betty's task wasn't to _actively_ please her patrons, but she figured that any obvious discomfort of hers would spread like a contagious cough back through that hatch, affecting the onlooker, so she learned to hide it. Then she found she didn't feel it very much anymore. Anyway, that was the easier change to identify.

Since Betty's work was so completely on her mind, from when she headed out the door of her house to the hour she left Penelope's later that day or evening, her outward observance had declined. By the time she noticed the changes outside of Thicket Hall―nothing inside changed, at least, not in the room where she spent her time―she had to wonder how she'd missed them. Coming up the driveway one day, Betty perceived that the gardens alongside it had been maintained, lending a less forbidding feeling to the approach to the house. It was cleaner, more vibrant, and gave the place the kind of expensive look that excessive care can provide (Betty was reminded of her mother's meticulously made-up face). Definitely a concerted effort by her employer, only Betty had never heard the telltale crunch and clunk of a fleet of landscaping company trucks, which was a familiar sound up and down her own street as neighbours' lawns were maintained throughout the summer. Since she'd taken to leaving the window of her room open on all but the most humid days, she was convinced that she would have heard the trucks had they come. Betty was also skeptical about how Penelope would've afforded the cost of hiring the work out on such a scale. So, what was the explanation? That Penelope was doing all that work herself, on top of her other… duties… seemed as likely as it was impossible. Had the woman freaked Betty out a little less, she might have asked her.

They did gain some ground together, once the charade of afternoon tea was done away with during their infrequent meetings. Penelope paid Betty regularly, which evolved into her paying regularly _and_ bestowing the most moderate of compliments regarding Betty's punctuality, which evolved into her paying, complimenting, and trusting Betty enough to give her a key to Thicket Hall. Betty was cautious of appearing too grateful, but this would definitely make things easier. It was absolutely outlandish to her that she was probably being shown more trust at work than whichever of her classmates had been hired to serve cones at Riverdale's little (but popular) ice cream shop; she had worked there herself one summer and could still recall the sensation of having the owner's eagle eye on her while she weighed the servings to determine the price.

The question of the key resolved, Betty settled into a new tier… which quickly became boring. All the risk of the job was still present, but without a precise goal (like receiving a key) to work towards, Betty got restless. How was she supposed to sit still and read her Beat poets and just wait for the next envelope of cash? It had never been the money she cared about; it was her unfathomable 'darkness' that needed nurturing, not her bank account. Feeling like a repressed Victorian lady, she would scurry to her window and fling her arms out in distress, seeking open air. Sometimes, the feel of gravity pulling her hands down was her only reminder that there was still direction in her world when she was here, at the Hall.

The grounds were large enough to make Betty feel at sea when she looked out―literally as though she were occupying the cabin of a substantially-sized vessel. When no clients were expected, she took pleasure in laying her bare back on the window sill and staring up at the sky; had the house been closer to a lake, the sound of seagulls would've improved the fantasy, but Betty was good with her imagination. On days that the heat had zapped too much of her energy to divert any to worldbuilding, she found enough to observe on the property, roses mostly. If she'd always been positioned upside down, she would never have seen the boy.

Actually, it was sound, not sight that informed her of his presence, though it wasn't him she heard. It was his music. She'd been lying across the bed, squirming to find a compromise between a position that kept her face hidden from the hatch and one that allowed her skin to touch some part of the bedsheet that was still cool. Then, it had started, partway into a song. Betty didn't know why that spot, or whether the person playing it had simply chosen that moment to crank the volume, but she did recognize the song.

" _…stars were bright above._

 _I'll hope and I'll pray_

 _To keep_

 _Your precious love_

 _Well before the light._

 _Hold me again_

 _With all of your might_

 _In the still of the night_."

She pried herself up from the bed, knowing that song anywhere, thanks to her numerous viewings of _Dirty Dancing_ ―a summer tradition. It was unlikely to be Penelope's music; besides the fact that something so sweet and heartfelt was an obvious mismatch for her employer's creepy seductiveness, the tune was coming from outside, through the window. So, Betty crossed the floor to it. Even her feet were sweaty and her soles smacked the hardwood. She glanced out, peered around, and saw no one. She leaned a little farther. Finally, she looked down and to the left and spied her listening companion. He was doing something along the side of the house, a boombox that was undoubtedly older than she was sat crookedly on the grass just above the garden bed. Of course, Betty realized, the man was gardening. She gave the yard another scan and saw no one else. It was a big job for just one guy, but it did explain why she'd never heard a whole crew of landscapers piling out of a truck.

He straightened up from his work and Betty jolted back inside. However, aside from the books she brought, Betty hadn't had much entertainment during her time in the room, and curiosity compelled her to look again.

Folding her arms on the sill, Betty advanced more cautiously this time, chin first, gazing straight down at her dark-haired subject. She had no idea if this thrill of a secret onlooking was the same as what her own visitors felt, but it certainly raised her heartrate to be the watcher for once, rather than the watched. Maybe it wasn't fair though, surveying without his knowledge or permission. She considered this angle for a minute, trying to be objective and unbiased, like when she vetted article ideas for the _Blue and Gold_. It could've been her overwarm discomfort that encouraged her snap decision, or sheer nosiness, but Betty concluded that she didn't care about being biased. This man was an employee of Penelope Blossom. How innocent could he be? He was probably being paid under the table (as she was, though purposeful ignorance prevented her from seeing herself as a hypocrite), or owed Penelope for some questionable favour she'd done him. Or, he might even be a criminal. Everybody knew the Blossoms had those kinds of connections.

Betty was trying to solve the mystery when the man did something that completely threw her off: he rewound the dying song and, this time through, he danced to it. Nothing studied or complex, but he was definitely swaying… and singing! She distinctly heard a low voice following the lyrics and couldn't help smiling. Even more delightful, from the way he sounded and moved, he was young! Not the washed-up, middle-aged fraudster her criminal-catcher mind had been picturing. She knew what was coming when she saw the man―boy―turn his head in the direction of the stiff broom that had likely been used to sweep the brick path lining the side of the house, but she still laughed when he picked it up and made it his dancing partner.

Suddenly, he dropped it and raised his head. Betty didn't wait to see his face; she darted back inside, blood thumping in her ears.

* * *

She was up there! Sweet Pea heard her laugh―the girl with the arms―and almost fell backwards over the boombox as he craned his neck back to look. He hadn't even brought it to get her attention, just to keep himself from getting so bored that he would lay down in the dirt and wait for all the fucking weeds to grow back up around him. Aaand, she was gone again. Shit.

Sweet Pea bent to inspect the other source of his entertainment. He'd hit it with his foot, but it looked fine. Fucking sturdy. Fangs would've told him he sounded like a grandpa for saying it, yet it was a goddamn fact that they didn't make things like they used to. Still, he needed to be at least a little careful, because the boombox didn't belong to him, it belonged to the Wyrm. Toni had found it buried in the back room during a slow night tending bar and after it sat around for a week with no one giving it a second glance, Sweet Pea had borrowed (taken) it for his own personal use. Thanks to the equipment's advanced age, it only played cassette tapes and AM radio (the switch to change it to FM was permanently stuck―from years of sweat and slopped drinks, Sweet Pea guessed). The latter option was useless since Penelope Blossom's house wasn't central enough for a strong reception. The former had seemed equally hopeless until Sweet Pea did some independent digging around odd corners of the Wyrm and turned up a pathetic collection of tapes. Nothing older than 1988. The communal tapes of Serpent youths gone by.

The best bet had been Springsteen, until the crispy old tape snapped as Sweet Pea was rewinding it. Nearly every other choice was unthinkable, so he'd settled on the soundtrack to _Dirty Dancing_. He wasn't stupid enough to tell anyone, but he'd always sort of idolized Patrick Swayze's character in that movie. The guy was cool, he had skills, and he beat the shit out of some rich sleaze. What was there _not_ to admire? And maybe Sweet Pea was no Johnny Castle, but it didn't hurt him when his observer laughed, catching him dancing.

After he assured the safety of the boombox as thoroughly as if it were a fellow Serpent, Sweet Pea stopped the track with a heavy _click_. His eyes returned to the still-open window. The _only_ open window, which was how he'd figured that playing music wouldn't bug the Blossom. And it hadn't. Instead, it had attracted a butterfly. He stood―hand cupped above his eyes, feet itching in the thick socks protecting them from the rub of his work boots―and puzzled over whether trying to meet the girl (she was young, from her laugh) would go against his better judgement.

Then, Sweet Pea recalled that he _had_ no better judgement.

He raced to the back door of the Hall, the sweat on his spine running about as fast as he was. Outside the door, he kicked free of his boots; leaving dirt and dried grass clumps through the house would only make things worse for Sweet Pea if he got caught. Not that he had any intention of being caught. His socks were torn off as well, first of all, because they stunk, and second of all, because it was too fucking easy to imagine himself slipping on the staircase and going home with a broken arm or a dent in his head. Plus, knowing Penelope Blossom the little that he did, Sweet Pea bet that she'd probably finish him off if she found him unconscious.

So he took his passage through the house slow―slow- _ish_ ―feet sticking to expensive floors like a tree frog might've stuck to the trees the wood came from. On the landing, he oriented himself, eyes falling on the line of closed doors that would have a window on the correct side of the house. _One of these things is not like the others_ , he thought, staring at some kind of metal plate in one of the doors. He approached that one, thinking it was worth a look, and pressed his damp hand flat to the plate, the heat of his palm making a cloudy outline. With a little pressure, and more of the tree frog grip, it slid sideways and then he was looking into the room at…

"Holy shit," he breathed.

A girl… a _naked_ girl… _the_ girl… shifted hastily to pose herself on the bed while Sweet Pea felt like his eyes were growing larger and larger. It took smacking his forehead on the door to realize he'd leaned in, wanting to see more. To see everything. God, she was so blonde and her skin looked so soft and―what was she doing here? What in the ever-loving sonofafuck was she doing here? Like… this? He shook his head. It didn't matter. The way she sat, the way her shoulders moved a little every time she breathed… there was nothing disgusting about what she was doing, and definitely not about her. She looked like an angel. The only girl Sweet Pea knew of with hair like that was Jughead's ex. He rolled his eyes solely for his own benefit, writing the Cooper girl off immediately. Yeah, she'd danced around the pole at the Wyrm one time, but that had been months ago and, as far as he'd been able to tell, not an experience a babe would want to build a career out of.

" _Hey_ ," he called to her just above a whisper. The girl started to turn her head, but then her back tensed and she froze. So she wasn't supposed to talk. Well, alright. He'd accept that for the moment.

Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, Sweet Pea looked her over again, believing there would be nothing more satisfying in the entire world than being able to touch that skin and run his fingers (once he'd scrubbed his hands clean) through that hair. Run them all over her. He'd never seen anybody look so elegant just sitting still.

A noise from down the hall made him clang the little metal window shut, but he'd be back. Now that he'd seen her, there was no other choice.

* * *

To be continued...

 **Author's Note:**

Psst! I'm on Tumblr as forasecondtherewedwon! I've been doing a ton of drabble requests lately, several Sweet Pea/Betty drabbles included!


	4. Meet the Gardener

IV

Sweet Pea thought seriously about killing Penelope. Well, not _super_ seriously, but frequently enough that it started to feel like a hobby he was enjoying at the same time he was doing her landscaping. His employer was suddenly always around―directing the workers who were installing new windows on the first floor, coming and going in her car, and sitting on her back patio under a monster umbrella, big stupid hat, and sunglasses that looked like two hockey pucks glued side by side. Sweet Pea considered provoking Cheryl and seeing if she'd take her rage out on her mom. He considered cooking up some crazy lie that would get Jughead worked up enough to have the same kind of freak out he'd had when he'd skinned the tattoo off that bitch Penny Peabody. Mostly, he contemplated murdering Penelope himself, with whatever gardening implement he happened to be holding, directing, or steering at the time.

It wasn't the woman's presence alone that pissed him off, it was also the way that presence divided him from the naked mystery girl upstairs. Maybe she had more appointments for guys to ogle her (Sweet Pea had figured that was what the sliding window was for), or didn't need the fresh air now that the new windows had better insulated the house? Or maybe he'd scared the crap out of her because she was somehow psychic and knew that the guy who dug around haplessly in the gardens like an oversized gopher was the same creep who'd startled her in the room, then tried to engage her in conversation. Admittedly, not his best pickup attempt. At least he didn't have to tell anybody about it.

He felt like a massive fucking dunce when he remembered that he already knew how to get more naked girl time. And no, it wouldn't be by swiping dirty magazines from one of the Southside's sketchy variety stores (his favourite hobby, age twelve). The boom box and the '80s tunes Sweet Pea cranked out of it would lure his fair-haired, second storey princess, just like they had before. Tried and goddamn true. It was a fact that '80s music and Blondies went together like French fries and a chocolate milkshake. So, he took his time working over the gardens on her side of the house and when her window opened, Sweet Pea twisted the volume way up.

* * *

 _I've been meaning to tell you_

 _I've got this feeling that won't subside_

 _I look at you and I fantasize_

 _You're mine tonight_

 _Now I've got you in my sights_

 _With these hungry eyes_

Betty was already smiling as she leaned through the window she'd just opened, looking for the young gardener. "Hungry Eyes" today, huh? Very cute. The scene in Dirty Dancing where it was used had always been her favourite from childhood―it was a montage about determination, focus, hard work, and improvement, all traits that she felt defined her very being. Her mystery guy was standing out from the wall today, but as hard as she stared at him, she couldn't get a good idea of what he looked like. That was because he stood with his back to her. What was he doing that for? The closest flowerbed was _behind_ him and… Betty had an epiphany: he was preventing her from seeing his face on purpose. She'd had to wonder about her surprise visitor the other day; it had been the first and _only_ surprise visitor she'd ever had at this job, arriving immediately after her near miss with the gardener when she'd laughed and had to duck back inside. Betty was too realistic to consider that a coincidence.

So what was with the hiding? She cupped her chin, resting her elbow on the windowsill and swishing her ponytail side to side to generate a little breeze for her bare back. He was actually starting to make her a little impatient. He couldn't be shy, or if he was, he was fine being shy about himself yet totally cool with peeping on her. He couldn't be shunning her, or if he was, it was because he hadn't liked what he'd seen after checking her out through the hatch. Betty frowned in dissatisfaction. Perhaps his reasoning was something she hadn't thought of, but what if it wasn't? Should she just sit by (naked!) and allow this arrogant garden-helper-dude to control their interactions? Absolutely not!

"Hey!" she called down at him, echoing his previous overture to her… in a ruder tone of voice.

He didn't so much as turn his head. Betty crossed her arms in frustration. She was deciding whether or not to shout at him again, self-esteem fighting caution, when he bent down and apparently rewound the cassette. Seconds later, Eric Carmen took it from the top.

Betty sighed. It seemed like he _was_ trying to communicate something to her, but what?

Her lips parted without regard for her brain.

The gardener… the guy… her gardener-guy… was taking off his shirt.

* * *

Sweet Pea wasn't trying to spring an impromptu strip show on the girl, just even the score; he hoped that his lack of hip swaying and the fact that his dirty white tank was the only thing he removed would make that clear. Now he'd seen her naked and she'd seen him… ok, a little less naked, but they could work with that, he thought. He waited a minute after the song ended, keeping the muscles of his back tensed for maximum effect, then turned and looked eagerly to the window. Gone! Goddammit!

He was still wondering about it as he got ready for work the next day, about why she'd disappeared. Client? Prudishness? Shit, he hoped not. That would put a serious fucking wrench in his plan to have her. Last night, it had even screwed with the fantasy version, in which he laid her back in a bed of rose petals―the joint influence of the plants he worked with every day and watching _American Beauty_ without permission at a formative age.

Had he done something incredibly stupid in a half-baked attempt to do something noble? Sweet Pea knew he always fucked that kind of thing up. He just had to believe that there hadn't been a better option. Stupidity, when acted on in the face of no additional choices, could be justified. (In his personal opinion.) Another consolation was that at least this dumbass (him) worked out, so disinterest was pretty low on the list of reasons she might've turned away. Ugh, he should've just talked to her when she'd called out to him! Why bother pretending not to be desperate when he thought about her enough to be half, maybe three-quarters in love with her already!

Sweet Pea let Riverdale's gracelessly aging public transit (busses with gum under every seat―and on top of some seats) take him as far as it ever did, passing the time with his elbow propped in the uncomfortable crook of the shallow window casing and thinking about love. He probed his mind the way he'd probed his stitched-up gums with his tongue after the dentist had removed his wisdom teeth; it hurt almost as much, that was what made him certain it was love. Maybe he'd already proven that it was a struggle for him to behave many degrees better than a jackass, but Sweet Pea's devotion to himself made it so that he never worried he didn't deserve that girl in the window.

* * *

Betty was so absorbed in Mansfield Park that she didn't realize her commute was over until the driver turned around and spoke to her.

"This close enough?" the older gentleman asked.

Looking out the windows on either side of the bus, Betty realized she was just one big curve in the road away from Thicket Hall.

"This is perfect! Thank you so much," she gushed on her way down the steps. The man gave her a kind smile before turning off on a side road and reversing course back to Riverdale proper.

She hadn't asked for special treatment, but she'd been catching this bus for a while, getting into enough of a routine that she often had the same driver, and he'd picked up on the fact that she rode his route to its conclusion, then got off and kept going on foot. Today being a hot one, he'd offered to take her closer to her destination. Of course, Betty had protested, but the man endeared himself to her by saying he had a granddaughter almost her age. He also pointed out that there were no other passengers left on the bus to worry about taking out of their way. Preferring to agree by nature, she had given in.

Rounding the curve with her feet smacking her flip flops, Betty admired ditch lilies and weedy, wild daisies. She contemplated the pleasures of taking up gardening―growing something of her own, something small, maybe something edible. Definitely nothing to rival even one of the gardens being constantly groomed by…

The road was straightening out and there he was, right ahead of her! Panicking, Betty slowed her pace, but she couldn't idly enjoy the surrounding flora now. She was far too distracted.

This was impossible! She hadn't had a chance to consider how she would interact with the sometimes shirtless, apparently _Dirty Dancing_ -loving boy. More accurately, she'd had plenty of time to think about it and simply hadn't taken it, not yet past the mere idea of him in her head as an entertaining diversion with, yes, ok, a nice body. Betty didn't know anything about him! She quizzed herself: was he hardworking? No idea! Except that she'd watched the gardens transform under his touch. Was he funny? Hard to say! Except that he'd purposely peeled off his shirt, knowing she was staring at him, to "Hungry Eyes." Did they have anything in common? It looked as though they both liked to dance, possibly both liked movies about people who liked to dance, and had both, somehow, come to work for Penelope Blossom. Really, Betty admitted to herself, that was a fair variety of commonalities.

Of the most vital importance, she thought as she observed him heading up the driveway to the Hall, was that he didn't only see her as a tool for his sexual gratification. Not like all the other young men she was paid to have a one-sided interaction with. It was probable, Betty allowed, that this guy was worth a shot. She sped up, marshalling her guts, determined that she would talk to him so they wouldn't spend the rest of the summer shouting "hey" at each other through windows.

A sudden lack of options made Betty skid to a stop, getting road gravel in her shoe in her awkward transition between street and driveway. It was a breeze to say she'd just approach him and start talking when she'd had an escape route, but the boy had halted halfway between where she stood and the house, setting down the boom box he was carrying and a backpack, and rummaging through the latter. She couldn't get to the Hall without passing him and she couldn't turn back because, eventually, she needed to get to work. There wasn't anything nearby where she could hang around for a while reading or drinking a soda. What was she going to do? Make for the woods and take herself a mile out of her way trying to sneak onto the property? Nope, nuh uh, not this girl. Not Betty Cooper. She would just be normal. Any second now, she would get her flip flops back under her brain's command and march right over.

The boy turned his head and she jumped.

* * *

Sweet Pea stared at Betty, confused. Why the hell was she looking at him like he'd just crept up on her with a face that was horror-movie-disfigured? Wait, he thought, why was she even _here_ to look at him? Oh no. Oh god. That blonde hair. That tote bag over her shoulder that said she was settling in for a stay, not out for a casual visit. (Besides, what else would a teenage girl be doing at this place? He knew full well what kind of visitors Penelope Blossom got. Dicks―the type of man, and the appendage.) Those fucking arms. That was the definite identifier, since Betty was wearing a sleeveless, button down shirt and he could see the complete length from her shoulder to the tip of her middle finger. He kind of wanted to give _himself_ the middle finger for the way he was staring at her. Luckily, she was looking back at him with about the same expression he would've guessed he was using on her. Bewildered, stunned, maybe a little horny, though the last could've been wishful thinking.

"So," Sweet Pea said, "should we try to lie to each other or jump straight to―"

"Hello again," Betty offered, cutting him off. Sweet Pea grinned.

"This is a different look for you," he commented boldly, glancing all the way down to her feet.

"Casual?"

"Clothed."

She flushed. Aha, so not a perfect marble statue after all.

"And you," Betty shot back.

"Why? Because no dirt?" He examined himself. Yep, clean shirt today (not for long). So maybe he liked to do the fucking laundry. No big deal.

"Because no partner. What's her name?" Betty asked, turning sly on him. Sweet Pea could only bend his eyebrows down towards his nose.

"Whose?"

"The broom's," she informed him. He grinned, judging from her face that bold wasn't one of her standard settings, which meant it was him bringing it out in her. "Honestly, if you're going to dance with somebody―or _thing_ ―like that, you should at least get her name."

"So she thinks I have honourable intentions?"

"So you can exchange insurance information when one of your moves goes terribly wrong. Don't flatter yourself, Serpent. You're no Fred Astaire."

Sweet Pea's eyebrows shot up.

" _Shit_. You are not what I thought. Haven't you spotted any redeeming qualities in me in all the time you've been staring?"

He watched Betty shift her weight from one neon orange flip flop to the other, his smile drooping. He'd shoved her out of playful banter as firmly as cracking an ice cube out of a tray. You could try to put it back, but it wouldn't stick. Unless you got it all wet, he thought, his analogy beginning to break down as memories of her naked body resurfaced.

"Maybe one."

"One?"

"You have good taste in music," Betty complimented, giving Sweet Pea a shy smile.

* * *

To be continued...


	5. Bloom

**Author's Note:**

Ok kids, we got dialogue, we got flirting, we got sexual content. Here is the chapter I know you've been waiting for.

Enjoy!

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

* * *

V

Sweet Pea stood smirking for a moment, crossing his arms as he considered whether or not to tell Betty that it wasn't exactly his taste in music she was praising, but the taste of some '80s Serpent rando. The tape may even have belonged to a member still kicking around the Wyrm, but he doubted with his whole leather-coated heart that anybody he knew would fess up to owning the cassette. Better to keep quiet and chalk that compliment up to one in his favour.

"What about me?" Betty asked, apparently getting impatient as he stood there with her, watching her pretty green eyes.

"I don't know what the fuck you listen to," he shot back with a shrug.

Betty sighed like he was wasting her time, which perked his smirk up into a grin since he knew she couldn't leave.

"I meant, don't I get a compliment, or do I have to beg for it like you did?"

"Don't worry, babe," Sweet Pea casually suggested, bending to sling his backpack over his shoulder, "I'll never make you beg for it."

Her fingers went to her forehead, touching delicately the way chefs on the cooking shows Fangs was always watching cleaned splatter off their fancy-pants plates before presenting them to be judged.

"That is…" Betty removed her hand and stared up at him with a look that wouldn't give an inch. "…presumptuous."

He offered her a wide smile.

"Well, with that attitude, now I'm going to have to make you beg for it."

Betty crossed her arms.

"You know, Sweet Pea, just because I work here and I… do what I do… doesn't mean there's an open invitation for you to hit on me."

"I guess my sense of our relationship is a little screwy since we've already been to third base," he said, not quite apologetic.

Betty snorted, surprising him.

"Boy, you have a good imagination. I hate to burst your bubble, but that wasn't my hand on your dick last night when you were stroking yourself off to _The Lake House_."

Sweet Pea whistled and nodded at her, slow and appreciative at the pure viciousness of her burn.

"Actually, it was _Hope Floats_. Thing is, _hun_ ," he emphasized, leaning closer to her to see if his proximity made her that good kind of nervous, "I've seen your butt."

"My butt?"

"Plus a little side-boob," he added boastfully.

"And in your mind that works out to third base?"

"I took a good long look," Sweet Pea promised in a low voice, definitely seeing the reaction in her face this time when he inched closer.

"But couldn't touch," she reminded him, putting on a fake pout. "At most, that's base one and a half." She took a step back.

"No way!" he protested, losing ground verbally and physically. "It might have only been my eyes on you, but they were doing all the things my hands wanted to. My eyes were hands, ok?! Two and a half!"

Betty smiled and raised a hand to pat his cheek with playful affection that threw him off for a minute.

"Two, since you're developing a complex over it."

"Two and a quarter," Sweet Pea pushed, "'cause you're being mean as hell."

"Alright."

"Yeah?" Grinning, he bent and hefted the boom box. "You have to get up there yet?" He jerked his head at the house, standing square and silent beside them.

"No, but I was going to get through a few more chapters of―"

"Cool." With his free hand, Sweet Pea grabbed Betty's, snatching it like coins from a charity box. He led her sideways along the driveway and into the grass. Her flip flops tripped her up, but he tensed his arm and kept her upright.

"Where are we going?"

"You're helping me get ready for work."

They walked a few more yards.

"This doesn't count, by the way."

Sweet Pea turned his head to look at Betty.

"What?"

"Holding my hand. It doesn't count towards third base. I'm not raising your score."

"Baby, you 'raise my score' every time you open your mouth."

" _Ugh_ ," Betty heartily groaned, pulling her hand out of his. That was fine, his palm was getting kinda sweaty anyway. "I could be reading Austen right now."

* * *

Spending the morning being dragged around the grounds by Sweet Pea started out with Betty feeling like she'd taken on a second job as the dog walker of a canine particularly fond of crude metaphors, subtext, and puns; the cocky yet compelling smile that accompanied each of the boy's remarks was what―she told herself―kept her at or near his side. There were the excuses to always be close enough to bump into her. There was the orchestrated brushing of hands as he passed her tools through the open door of the garden shed (rundown, but really quite large, in keeping with the scale of the rest of the Hall and property). The long looks. The thoughtful questions (Did she want to stand in the shade for a while? Did she have sunscreen on? What SPF?). The compliments on her physical appearance that tried to be lecherous but were really quite sweet. Not wanting to destroy the self-perception Betty assumed he had, she frequently hid her smile.

The morning concluded with her feeling certain that this guy was almost completely charming, in spite of himself.

"Quit handing me things!" Betty suddenly exclaimed, back at the shed, her tote and flip flops abandoned on the lawn. A restlessness had swept over her, rolling her under like a riptide, and throwing her back with a different side of herself facing up.

"Last thing," Sweet Pea promised, emerging with a long-handled implement.

Betty raised her eyebrows and refused to extend a hand.

"Really? A hoe?"

Sweet Pea sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I'm not making a joke. I need it. Seriously." He thrust it at her again and Betty reluctantly accepted, standing it upright and leaning on the end as Sweet Pea carefully secured the shed's stiff old door.

"Any idea what the proprietress is up to this morning?" she asked, watching his shoulders and the muscles of his back jump under his shirt as he fit the door into place.

"Oh yeah." He turned around with a grin. "Car in the driveway."

Sweet Pea walked by her, leaving Betty to follow with the hoe.

"Doesn't she tell you anything?" he teased over his shoulder.

"Sure she does," she retorted defensively. "If anything, I know too much."

"Gross."

"I have my own key and everything," Betty bragged.

"Imagine that," Sweet Pea rejoined sarcastically. "Giving the bird a key to its own cage."

Instantly, she halted. The shortened shadows of late morning pulled her eyes away from his back. Also, she didn't want to look at him just then.

"I'm not in a cage."

"If you say so."

"I want to be here."

Probably realizing her voice was coming from farther away, Sweet Pea stopped and turned back to her. He shrugged.

"Well, gosh, who the fuck wouldn't?"

Betty shoved the hoe to the ground and stormed past him, in search of neon flip flops lurking somewhere in the lawn. He called her name. She ignored him. He put himself in her path. She paused.

"I want to be here, but I don't want to be _here_. You're being too…" Betty studied his face. Carefully. "…confusing. Maybe I'll see you later."

"Betty," Sweet Pea implored as she located her flip flops and wiggled her toes into them, "Betty. Quit it. Are we having our first fight?"

Betty glanced at him and found her gaze stuck. It was inhumane, like a glue trap, the way something in her was forcing her to keep looking at him. What he was saying was ludicrous, and yet she kind of felt that way too. Their entire acquaintance had been compressed, sped up, condensed, shortened, like they were trying to get out all the words they might have said during the time they'd only looked.

"'Cause I wasn't expecting us to hit this landmark until, like, our fifth date," he went on explaining, smoothing a hand across the top of his hair―in a focused way, not a vain one. "When we'd order pizza and I'd find out that you liked, let's say, green peppers on yours, which is a total deal-breaker in my books, babe, and you would insist I was being an idiot and then―"

The guy was panicked. He was genuinely panicked, Betty could see that. For hours, he'd been showing her that he wanted to be around her and the moment he switched from come-ons to critique, she shut him down. From a logic standpoint, it made zero sense that she would spurn thoughtful analysis and permit impetuous flirting.

"I don't like green peppers," she cut in, probing his eyes with her own.

"Well, thank god for that," Sweet Pea sighed, dropping the arms he'd begun waving as he illustrated this tragedy of toppings for her.

"In there," she started, twisting her fingers together, "was there something about a date?"

"I… may have mentioned the word."

"And it was the fifth one," Betty clarified, "right?"

Sweet Pea laughed awkwardly, half swinging away from her.

"Right?" she pressed, walking up to him.

His eyes went everywhere but her face.

"That word may also have been said," he allowed.

"Then I think," Betty resolved, "that we better get working on the first one."

Gradually, she reached her arm forward, touching high on his chest. Her eyes blinking too much and then maybe not at all, Betty watched his brown ones, moving her hand to the back of his neck.

"You think so?"

She felt Sweet Pea's hand on her hip, glanced fleetingly down at it to check it was really there. Instead of pulling her in, he came to her.

"Mhmm," she assured him, kicking her flip flops off again and stretching up on bare toes. His nose ran alongside hers. "I want to get to the date where we eat pizza."

When she kissed him, it was even better than watching Johnny teach Baby the lift.

* * *

It would be fantasy. It would be a dream. It would be the dangerous effects of sunstroke. Sweet Pea opened his eyes and saw Betty Cooper. He felt the way her hands were locked behind his neck like at a dance. He felt the sensation of their just-ended kiss on his lips, like they were indented the way a couch cushion was right after the person sitting on it had stood up. He watched her nibble her lip between her teeth and thought _oh shit, I'm gone_. She took him by the hand.

"Come with me," Betty said, in between a request and a demand to his ears.

"Where?" he asked. Not 'Why?' or 'For how long?' Shit shit shit. Gone gone gone.

"It's time for you to help _me_ get ready for work," she informed him with a smile a little too mischievous to be trotted out for the valedictorian speech she would definitely be giving when they graduated.

They went around the front to make sure the stranger's car was still in Penelope's driveway (oh, the dirty metaphors to be made which Sweet Pea held back on), then snuck up to Betty's office. He didn't want to think of it as her bedroom because it wasn't her at all. Unsurprisingly, it made Sweet Pea wonder what Betty's real bedroom looked like and if he would ever see it. Flirting on the lawn with the gardener was one thing (one very, very soap opera-ish thing), but following through was a whole fucking other. She trusted him this far, anyway, or else, she was _seriously_ committed to calling his bluff. He would've bet either or both of his nuts on the assumption that all Betty needed to do to get ready for work was to take her clothes off.

She shut the door behind them, leaning back against it; Sweet Pea could tell by the way her arms were folded at her back that she was still gripping the knob.

"So," he nonchalantly began, "how can I help?"

"How about I just… pass you things?"

Sweet Pea snorted.

"Payback then?"

"Except nothing I hand you has the potential to give you splinters," Betty added, eyes narrowing accusingly.

"You know, I just knew you'd never give me anything I wouldn't want. No splinters, no STIs; you've been tested, haven't you, Betty?" He grinned at her and she took a step away from the door, mouth looking like it was hiding a smile.

"Hilarious," she commented flatly. She shuffled her sandals off and held out her tote bag to him.

"I thought so." He whisked the bag out of her hand and flung it backwards onto the bed with a flourish.

"I may crack a rib."

Like she expected him to assess her for that exact type of internal damage, Betty's fingers moved quickly down her front, undoing buttons faster than Sweet Pea could get his goddamn throat to swallow so that he wouldn't drown himself with his own drool.

"Well," he said, voice rough and strange as hell coming out, "maybe I should help you. Again."

"So I don't pierce a lung?" Betty asked, looking so fucking much calmer than Sweet Pea felt. She pulled her shirt open and let it slip down her arms. Sweet Pea's jeans were suddenly his greatest enemy on earth; he was standing in a small room with a fucking peep-hatch and that felt less confining than his pants.

"Yep," he said, moving towards her and settling his hands on her bare shoulders. "Everything I'm about to do is for the safety of your internal organs."

With that, he pushed the straps of her bra down her arms. Betty's heart seemed to bounce under her skin, though Sweet Pea was focused harder on how it made her boobs look. He edged closer to her, watching her green eyes right up until the second they kissed―the way those eyes appeared expectant and optimistic.

He knew he almost definitely should not have been doing what he was doing, curling his arms around half-naked Betty Cooper, but it was wonderful. _She_ was wonderful. She stretched up on her toes and he loved the way it put her weight on him, like he was responsible for her. On top of that, he was responsive to her, air gusting out Sweet Pea's nose when she let his stiffness dig into her stomach. With a little rocking motion from her, he had her pressed back into the wall, trying to get her legs around his hips and unhook her bra at the same time. The kissing progressed with a hasty wildness until Sweet Pea got Betty's bra undone and his attempt to fight it from her arms led to them sliding to the floor.

On his knees, Sweet Pea tossed his vanquished pink cotton foe away over his shoulder and reached for Betty. He sat back on his feet and, checking and double-checking the look in her eyes, tugged her into his lap. For a second, he just held her, heart fucking pumping away. And then his closed lips brushed her neck and then she took his hands in hers and then his hands were on her boobs and then he was pulling her up harder, in closer, hips to hips, and running his tongue down her chest.

Betty let out the sweetest gasp he'd ever heard when he licked across her nipple. The best thing to do seemed to be turning them so he could lay her on her back and continue. Hips jerking a little too obviously between Betty's thighs, Sweet Pea left marks all over her boobs with his tongue; they rapidly disappeared, his spit drying in the warm room on her flushed skin. He played with her, he teased her, he lined her like a soccer pitch, the soft moans she was muffling against his ear outlasting the shine of each lick.

When she stretched her arms above her head, making her hips bump his, Sweet Pea quickly unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. Finding out she'd only been going for her phone was the newest, greatest misfortune of his shitty young life. He groaned unreservedly into her neck.

"I know," she said. "I have someone coming in 15 minutes though, so you have to get out of here."

Jaw clenched, Sweet Pea got to his feet, trying not to stare at Betty to lessen the chance of him dropping her right back to the floor.

"Fine," he said shortly, doing up his jeans.

"Fine," Betty snapped back.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw her doing the same. With a deep breath, he walked to her before his pride could trip him up and hugged her tight.

"Sorry about…" Betty pressed her body into Sweet Pea's, causing him to jolt at the pressure against his dick. He laughed under his breath.

"Yeah, I better get back out there to my hoe."

Crossing her arms over her naked chest, Betty stepped back and rolled her eyes.

"Any funnier this time?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at her hopefully.

"A little," she allowed.

"Ok, ok." He backed towards the door with a grin on his face. "Just… keep your shorts on 'til I'm gone, would you? Otherwise I won't be able to stand it." Betty nodded, smiling. "And um…" Sweet Pea darted back to her, holding her gently by the elbows. "See ya later."

Quickly, he kissed her, then booked it through the door, down the stairs, and out into the yard. He stopped at the shed, though he felt like he could've kept running for miles.

* * *

To be continued...


	6. Rose and Shone

**Author's Note:**

Thank you all so, so much for your response to this story. Although this is my second Sweet Bee fic (after _Dumped and the Sweet Thereafter_ ), almost everything about it is different―or at least so it seems to me while I'm writing it. Far fewer characters, less dialogue, more description, and a different pace all present opportunities and challenges. It is wonderful and motivating to see so many of you on board.

Enjoy this chapter!

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

* * *

VI

Part of being a Serpent was getting used to people talking shit to you―especially your friends. Sweet Pea became anal to the point of angry as he adapted to a new regime involving him never, ever missing his morning bus―and sometimes being up and ready fast enough to catch an earlier one―and his cohorts responded accordingly. The young Serpents had been breaking into each other's trailers since they were dexterous enough to pick a lock or tall enough to hoist themselves through a window. When blatant comments weren't enough to shame Sweet Pea out of his righteously observed schedule, those shadier talents were put to use to tease him. One day, he rolled over in bed as he woke up, right onto an outfit someone had laid out for him, like he was under the age of five (though the handwritten 'Penelope Blossoms Owns My Ass' note safety pinned to the t-shirt wasn't so PG). Another day, it was the lunch waiting on the wobbly kitchen table, complete with a sandwich cut into heart shapes. The obvious mockery didn't stop him from eating it.

Yep, he was sure he had them all wondering where his brand fucking new worker bee attitude and tolerance for pranks had come from, but he was keeping his mouth firmly shut. Toni gave up on the antics first (probably because pestering him was a pastime a hell of a lot less fun than making out with her girlfriend) and Sweet Pea was aware of the way she'd stare at him when he got back to Sunnyside at the end of the day. Well, the joke was on Toni because he couldn't wait for the day he'd be able to tell her and the rest of those sons of bitches that he was dating Betty Cooper, the girl with a reputation as golden as an Oscar, if an Oscar had boobs.

Boobs were key. Ever since he'd started noticing boobs as a kid, they'd been pretty high up there in Sweet Pea's interests, but now that he'd seen Betty's… well, he felt like the first man on the moon. Although, he wasn't actually the first guy to see the boobs. He was trying not to let it bother him. It wasn't that Betty'd seen somebody seriously before him―it was that the somebody was Jughead. Sure, Jughead was weird and dorky and shit, while Sweet Pea'd been the de facto king of the young Serpents for years before Jughead woke up and realized he was supposed to be a Southsider, but now, Sweet Pea was feeling damn nearly willing to go back in time and swap that status and responsibility if it could get him Betty first.

Ok, fine. It wasn't even _that_. As firmly rooted as the rogue rosebushes in the earth he'd had to rip them from, so rooted was this anxious longing in his virginity.

Because Sweet Pea didn't just want Betty's boobs, or her bod, or her butt, he wanted to be _good_. He wanted that confidence he believed came with being awesome in the sack. That feeling of buying a product with batteries included. If he had that, maybe he wouldn't get huffy when they had to stop making out in order for her to be ready for clients. Maybe it would even kill that fleeting surge of jealousy he got when he saw Jughead. Yes, sir, being good would work miracles.

Sweet Pea was no dummy. He knew that some men were born good, some achieved goodness, and some had goodness thrust upon them. It was unclear at the moment which guy he was, except that he wanted to be the one thrusting, not thrusted upon, or whatever. So he went back to the basics, as defined by himself and the random assortment of songs, movies, and 'Most Romantic TV Scenes EVERRR' clips on YouTube.

And then he got sick of all that shit and decided to wing it. (Except for the condoms. He bought condoms. Again, not a dummy.)

Day after day, Sweet Pea got to the Hall early and proceeded to loiter around the front of the house until his girl showed up. If Penelope was parking her car, or directing a contractor, or even walking Betty inside, Betty and Sweet Pea still snuck a meaningful glance, and sometimes a smile, past their employer. He didn't know exactly how Betty felt about… whatever their flirting was leading to, but he assumed it was best kept hidden, figuratively whisked back and forth under the nose of Penelope Blossom. It wasn't like Betty's job encouraged freedom by definition. In any other instance where he'd have an opportunity to make some young, rich prick jealous, Sweet Pea would definitely have taken it. This time, he worried that if he put an arm around Betty's shoulders and was spotted by one of her clients, Penelope would chop that arm off with an axe. Not that he'd seen an axe during his numerous, mind-numbing trips to the garden shed, but with isolated, eccentric women like Penelope Blossom, there was always a fucking axe someplace.

Mostly, Sweet Pea and Betty found the time to be together and he let those condom-relevant thoughts slide away just to see the girl smile. Sometimes he managed to be funny, but she laughed more and more often regardless, which was how he knew she was really starting to warm to him. He'd ask what she was reading and she'd ask how things were for him on the Southside. It was totally incredible how she listened, how she cared. He could tell her stuff without thinking 'this girl is gonna pity me.' Pretty quickly, he could tell her stuff without thinking at all. For a kid who'd always been the mean, stoic crayon in the crayon box of Serpent brats, it was a little terrifying to find himself talking that much.

Once, he crept all the way up to her office and tossed a rose through the little peephole and onto the floor while Betty sat posed on the bed, facing away, and Penelope was who the fuck knew where in the house. Sweet Pea's heart was going like a bass vibration the whole time. The list of things he was explicitly not supposed to do was short, and he'd already come into the house more than once, but this was his first time breaking the rule about not picking the Blossom roses. To make sure Betty knew it too, he'd found a grubby length of twine and an old plant marker in the shed, writing on the back 'HIDE THIS,' before tying it to the rose and propelling it through the hatch.

Their interactions were always at work because _they_ were always at work, but Sweet Pea was feeling vulnerably hopeful―enough to be nervous as hell―about the end of summer. He just had to make sure he really meant something to her by then so that she wouldn't leave this place and him with it. And so the idea of being good circled back to him; first, like a distantly hovering vulture―then, like a mosquito making a fucking racket right in his ear.

He was halfway through mowing the grass one afternoon when he just stopped and stepped out of the neat path he'd cut, stampeding across the lawn where the blades were yet unshorn. The plan in his head only went as far as _step, halt, pat pockets to check for condoms, move forward, faster, snatch roses off vine near door, enter house, kick off shoes. Go, go, go to her_. This was starting to feel familiar.

* * *

She couldn't believe it was snowing. What was this place, Narnia? Betty smiled to herself. A little fantastical, but maybe not absolutely impossible. It reminded her of the thoughts she'd had on her initial trip out here, seeing the Hall for the first time. She was at an isolated historic manor, after all, the sort that were always like lightning rods for magic and the unordinary in fantasy stories. She put her bare hands up to catch the snow, confident because it wasn't the slightest bit cold. This wasn't right though. No matter where she put her hands, how she spread her fingers, she couldn't catch or block the snow. It brushed her cheeks and neck and finally, hit her in the face.

Betty woke up and panicked because she was naked.

Then, she remembered being naked was her profession. The next second, she realized she did have one thing on: something small and soft resting just below her eye. Bleary from her short, accidental nap, Betty felt for the object with clumsy fingers and lifted it for inspection. A rose petal. She frowned and, nonsensically, twisted her head to look at the ceiling, as though expecting to see petals falling like… well, like snow.

Nervously, she turned her head to view the hatch, already feeling for the edge of the white sheet she had crumpled and twisted beneath her. Betty exhaled in relief at the sight of Sweet Pea, then her pulse began to pound in a different way as she decided to stay as she was, lying on her stomach. He'd seen this much of her body before (and more!), right? As long as she did nothing different, this wouldn't be any more intimate than any of their past encounters. Almost the second Betty decided to proceed with caution, she made a reckless choice.

"It's not locked," she called out softly. "Come in."

Betty wedged her chin into the little dip created by her vertical, balled up fist to keep her head from tilting and bobbing like a bird's as she watched Sweet Pea enter the room. Yes, maintaining her nudity had been a choice based on her own comfort, but she was still curious as to how he would react. The last time he'd witnessed her partially naked, he'd been an eager participant in getting her that way. Sweet Pea had also seen her completely bare from the back before (as confirmed by him during a previous conversation), though that had occurred prior to any other communication between them. Would this be weird for him? For her? Even if she could've seen her patrons as they came to view her body, Betty didn't think she would've felt the same as she was feeling now, her gaze and Sweet Pea's drawn into collision, then striking away from each other like refracted light.

"Should I sit, or…?"

His voice was lifting with evident adrenaline and indecision―begging for direction―yet its rolling comfort still raised goosebumps across her warm skin. Betty shifted, looking way up at him. Before she could reply, he bent over her.

"Um, here. I have another one. I didn't know how many it would take to wake you up."

And he smoothed the hair away from her face on one side and tucked a pale pink rose behind her ear.

A sudden thickness in her throat told Betty not to linger in the moment or she'd start crying. She touched the flower, carefully feeling the suede curls of its petals' edges, and rolled to the side, pulling the sheet to her chest and over her hip.

"Sit, please," she requested, and grabbed Sweet Pea's hand when he started to back away from her towards the ornate chair in the corner, looking like a wallflower at a dance. "Here," Betty clarified, reeling him in until he sat on the bed beside her. She released his hand in case it was too much, but he put his right back on top of hers, his fingers making a low cave as they folded over the backs of her own.

"My jeans are probably dirty―"

"We'll brush it off," she assured him, saying anything without really listening to herself because he was next to her. She could feel his heat and smell the sunshine that seemed to have smuggled itself into the room on his bare shoulders.

"Productive day?" Sweet Pea asked, startling Betty with the question until the corner of his mouth darted out to make a crescent in his cheek. "Wish I could sleep on the job."

She laughed, tracing her rose.

"I'm not really supposed to, but the house has been quiet today." Betty smiled sheepishly. "And my book got a little slow."

Sweet Pea adjusted his position, coming further onto the bed, though his long, grey-socked feet still hung off the side. His hand found hers once more.

"Anything more interesting in your dreams?"

One of his fingertips crept between her middle and index fingers, sketching a ticklish line to her hand. Betty held her other hand to her heart, afraid it might beat so hard that she'd have to catch it like a bloody baseball in the sheet trapped between palm and chest.

"Why does that sound like a leading question?" she playfully accused, jerking her hand out from underneath and slapping it down on the back of his. Because it felt natural, Betty let their fingers align, slipping hers between his. The skin of Sweet Pea's knuckles was sharp and raspy under her palm.

"You ever dream about me?"

He didn't look at her, only at their hands. Betty's eyebrows drew together as she smothered a surge of emotion, climbing like a barometer's mercury from a fathomless place inside her.

"I don't remember," she told him honestly, dropping her cheek to the cool sheet and curving her body around where he sat. Close, but not touching.

"Would you want to?" His hand ran up her arm and she watched the way he tried to keep his face expressionless. Amateur gardener, professional tough guy.

"I can't control my dreams, Sweet Pea." It felt good to say his name. Betty took a deep breath and faintly smelled the rose he'd given her. It was a minute pressure against the side of her head, slowly expiring, laid to rest on a bed of her hair.

"But I bet you've tried." He pressed his thumb just below her bottom lip, just for a second, maybe less. She felt studied by his hands, but not coldly. Maybe she was a different kind of art form than Penelope Blossom had intended her to be.

"Of course." She smiled and flipped completely onto her back so she could always be looking at him.

"If you could dream about me, what would you dream?" he asked with a grin.

Betty shrugged and shook her head, causing him to reach out to ensure she didn't lose her flower.

"I don't know."

"Close your eyes," Sweet Pea entreated, fingers inching deeper into her hair.

"I'm not going to fall asleep again. I can't with you here like… this," she finished, the idea of putting into words the atmosphere that she'd felt closing in around them, special and precious, seeming too intimate and challenging to attempt. It halted her tongue with the force of its inertia.

"I'm going to get caught and tossed out your window by my fucking throat any second," Sweet Pea exaggerated. "Humour me."

Betty's eyes narrowed, closely contemplating his face. Nothing in her said, _Stop, don't trust him_. She shut her eyes and instinctively stretched out her hand and felt for his leg as the point of reference in her temporary blindness.

"Just see what you think of," he suggested. She heard the tinny clink of the dog tags he wore. She heard them _bump, bump, bump_ , sliding over the ridges of their chain.

She couldn't really think of anything except why she and Sweet Pea might be playing this game. He'd come to her by his own design. She'd invited him in. It was true, what Betty had been wondering about herself; she craved him. She twined her legs together, pointed her yellow-polished toes. _Why always so restless_ , Betty thought, making the demand of herself. This job had actually started to calm her, to placate the fears and the 'darkness' that had made her suffer before, that had oozed down her arms and clawed her palms using Betty's own fingers. Wasn't that what she really needed? Tranquility to let the confusion inside her simply settle? So then why did this feel better? How did five minutes with Sweet Pea make her feel more herself than four hours lying here alone with a book? It was because, Betty realized, she wasn't suppressing any part of herself, not forcing her 'darkness' into a timeout. Everything she'd done in the past to counter negativity, well, she was too aware of. They were practices she'd trained herself into and couldn't help but associate with the problems―real or imagined―she so badly wanted to shed. Sweet Pea was new and she felt new now, even when he wasn't around. Did she want to dream of him? Of them together? Betty squeezed her eyelids tighter. _Yes_.

She felt his dog tag drag along her exposed shoulder.

"Let me make love to you," Sweet Pea whispered at her ear, breath so hot it might have wilted the rose.

* * *

To be continued...


	7. Ripen

**Author's Note:**

Crank that Marvin Gaye, people. These two are about to get it on.

* * *

VII

This felt more like a dream than her dream had. Even daydreams weren't this good. Betty let her eyelids lift slowly, lashes batting away any ghosts of reality lingering in this fantasy world she was apparently living in. Here, now, with Sweet Pea and his serious brown eyes hovering over her. His lips came down to roll against hers, not too roughly, before he raised his head and apparently waited for her to speak.

"Here?" Her gaze zipped around his face, like the dance one bee does for another, communicating something vital for their mutual survival. That was what this meant to Betty. A floating feeling told her so.

Sweet Pea flicked his head to the side and she longed to brush the hair from his eyes.

"Better than back in the real world."

Betty laughed, running her fingers lightly back and forth along the top of his jeaned thigh.

"Isn't this the real world?"

"No," came his immediate denial, face set so seriously, except for the playful fire in his eyes, daring her to stretch out and touch it. To see if it would burn.

"What is it then?" Betty demanded, propping herself up on an elbow to pose her question.

Sweet Pea's head flopped back, gaze looping around the ceiling with a lazy maneuver of his neck.

"Everland," he told her, face swinging back to kiss her cheek, her ear.

"Neverland?" she asked, though she thought she'd heard him correctly.

"No, I don't like the word 'never.'"

"Is that because of me, or is it just a personal quirk?" Betty wondered with a smile.

"It's the _only_ thing from before that I'm still sure of," he avowed, face full―overflowing, even―with uncomplicated honesty.

"Before?" She touched the back of his hand when he folded his palm around her jaw.

"Yeah. B.C.," Sweet Pea joked. "Before Cooper."

"You are shockingly blasphemous," Betty accused, biting her lip as her smile threatened to tug even wider.

"And you are totally naked under that sheet. Which thing are we gonna do something about?"

Betty lowered her eyes, blushing. She could only watch the white cotton rise and fall while she traced her fingers creepingly up Sweet Pea's arm.

"So…" he began, shifting closer to her, "… yes?"

"Yes," Betty agreed. She looked up to his face and slowly exhaled. "Do what you said."

With a guttural sound, Sweet Pea dropped his head down to kiss her. She clutched tightly to his dog tags, bringing him with her as she sunk onto her back. His arm wedged her in snugly, hand planted against the mattress, but Betty was pushing against his grip a second later, levering the boy upright while her other hand jumped to the hem of his damp cotton tank. Grinning, he peeled it off, then sprawled over her with an eager leap that made the bed bounce and expelled Betty's nervy anticipation in a wild giggle.

"Come here," she heard herself repeating. "Come here."

Grabbing for his neck, unabashedly wrapping her hands around his upper arms, touching then tugging the hair that flipped down into his eyes like a '90s heartthrob's―Betty was appreciating at close range just how exceptional a specimen was this creature she'd found in the garden. The lower her fingers stroked, the further she seemed to sink into something that should be a dream, but was instead vital and immediate, flowing outward from a need she was desperate to express.

He wasn't shy about pressing his hips down; this boldness was new to Betty. For a blurring, whipping, pleasurable minute, time and manners and timidity were all forgotten, Sweet Pea digging his fingers hard into her hair while his tongue scooped hers up and sucked it until she was desperate to rub her pulsing clit against his erection, his palm, his thigh―anything. Except that she was tangled, sweating and frustrated, in the goddamn sheet! She thrashed like a wild animal, and, also like an animal, led with her hips, the pure urge she felt for him beautifully focusing her body and mind. Stopping herself felt impossible, undesirable, out of her control, but Sweet Pea did it for her.

"You're… _wow_. _Fuck_. I could never have…"

"Well, now you _can_ have," Betty said, probably butting in on his dangling thought, yet too overcome with the new wish to bite hard into one of his pecs while he turned her brain into soup to feel timid about expressing her fervour.

Sweet Pea laughed (it was a sound she wanted to feel rippling across her skin) when she began winding her foot around the back of his calf.

"I just wanna tell you something first."

"My ears are wiiiide open," she promised, also spreading her legs further while catching one of his belt loops to make sure his hips were close enough to feel it.

With a groan that Betty was certain had been custom designed to involuntarily contract the keen muscles between her thighs, Sweet Pea caught her face with renewed vigour and kissed her until she couldn't breathe.

"Wait! No, no, no," he insisted as she gasped, pushing her hips to his. "I really have to say this."

"May I point out that I was not the one who stopped you from elaborating?" Betty smiled up at him, curling her fingers into the waist of his jeans and skating them towards the button.

Above her, he shivered.

"I'm a virgin," Sweet Pea blurted. Immediately, Betty paused.

"Oh my god," she said, unfolding her extremities from his body. "Is this too much? Is it too fast? When you were talking about dreams before, is that where you meant for these desires to be confined to?"

"Relax," he demanded, suddenly the commanding young Serpent. "I don't want to stop. Holy fucking hell, do I _not_ want to stop."

"Then," Betty did a cautious scan of his face, "is this about protection? Are you not… prepared?"

In response, Sweet Pea reached into his pocket―she felt his knuckles brush her hip through the sheet―and tossed out a wrapped condom like he was flipping a coin.

"So what is it?" Betty touched his face, which turned into stroking the curve of his jaw from ear to chin. She wanted to memorize these bones, this organic constellation.

"I just want to be fair to you."

"Ok…?" She frowned up at Sweet Pea and he sighed, dipping his head and humming his lips along her collarbone.

"I thought you would want somebody with experience," he admitted, as quiet as the breeze that would lazily twirl through her open window during late afternoons when she looked for him in the emerald yard.

"I want _you_."

Those serious dark eyes gazed at her with a gentleness Betty couldn't easily trace. When had he started looking at her like that? Maybe they'd missed a step, were working from scrambled instructions on how to build a relationship, or sailing through thin air on a skipping stone and only noting their progress when they rebounded off the water. Sweet Pea's glance at his own hands before he peeled the sheet down her chest said that he thought he didn't know how to touch her; on the inside, Betty was gusting out a humongous sigh of relief. So what if he wasn't guided by several bedpost notches' worth of experience? Passion would be his teacher.

His movements were soft, but the second his palms roughed over her breasts, Betty felt each and every time Sweet Pea had made the decision not to put on work gloves. And she moaned, naturally, because of it. To his lips, it seemed a Siren call, and his face swooped down to hers before halting with less than an inch between them. Watching his eyelids fall was a gift she never would've thought to ask for, and the kissing that followed rocked her like a ship on untamed ocean. Her fingers homed in on the location of his fly and Betty got his jeans undone and sprawled open on his hips like a frog in biology class. She reached for his cock―harder and hotter in her hand than the hardwood floors of the Hall were beneath her feet at midday―and Sweet Pea nudged her deeper into the kiss, squeezing and kneading her nipples between fingers and thumbs.

The hungry sound she made as her fingers inadvertently measured his size acted in place of a more articulate command, sending Sweet Pea's hands to shove his jeans and whatever underwear he wore (he was too hasty for her to find out) down and off his body. Betty laid her palms on his nude hips―slow and spreading like split milkshake―and thrilled herself by sliding them around to grab his firm butt. His hips lowered onto hers again and Betty, once more aware of her bottom half still caught in the sheet, felt Sweet Pea pressing against her. Just him and her, and thin white cotton in between. Gaze sweeping from her lips to her hips, he began to draw the sheet away. Betty helped (or maybe hindered) by working her knees against the fabric, constantly shuffling to free more skin for heated contact.

Their game of hide and seek stalled when Sweet Pea's hand landed at the lowest possible spot on her hips without being between her thighs. Betty's heart was beating fitfully, chest rising and falling irregularly as she snuck a look down her own body to see what he was seeing. Her hipbones were exposed and the sheet lay pinned only where his hand remained. Until he lifted that hand and languidly rubbed his cock over the place instead. She opened her mouth and let her head roll to the side while her shoulders shuddered. Sweet Pea clumsily grabbed her chin to turn her face back to his, then adjusted his positioning and pitched forward again.

Betty couldn't understand why the atypical act they'd stumbled into felt even more sensual than sex ever had to her. What she did understand were the simple things, swirling around her head like cartoon knockout stars: that she wasn't worried about how her body looked; that Sweet Pea's broad shoulders made her want to nestle into him; that there was damp cotton plastered at the crux of her thighs and it was only getting wetter. Sweet Pea stroked his stiff erection against her without lifting away in between, forward and back, like a soloing violinist making the most out of a string. Every little jerk pulled at her clit and Betty breathed hard with scattered _mmm_ s and _yes, yes, yes_ es. She thought that keeping her eyes open and alert as much as possible was important so that Sweet Pea would know what she really thought, but quickly, things were getting a little too enjoyable for that and Betty's eyes closed around the same time that her feet left the mattress to lock together on Sweet Pea's lower back.

She could've sworn her clit was vibrating, as though the boy's motions had primed it like a wind-up toy, but it was the rasping, almost moody groan he made as he released and soaked the sheet that set her spine into a sudden arch when her climax chased his. Feeling as though even her teeth were quivering, Betty gasped and dug her nails into his flesh. It was with gratefulness a few seconds later that she realized Sweet Pea was tenderly disengaging her cramping legs from his body and yanking the flooded sheet away. He untidily balled it in his arms and dumped it to the floor as she laughed, twirling one ankle then the other to stretch out her calves.

"I'm going to have to wash that now," she un-mournfully lamented, letting her arm hang over the side of the bed to point at the dirty bedding.

"Yeah right. Penelope Blossom doesn't have somebody to do her laundry?" Sweet Pea sat up and pulled Betty's leg across his lap, probing the muscle with strong yet careful thumbs.

"I can't just put that in the laundry," she argued. "It's… gross." She was embarrassed when he looked sharply at her and caught her blushing.

"It is not 'gross.'" He rolled his eyes. "And you're not going to wash it. I am."

Betty worked herself up on her elbows, ready to contest his assertion, but Sweet Pea stopped her.

"I'll just jam it in my backpack. Penelope stopped searching my stuff every time I left the property back in my third week."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Oh my god! She did that? That is so―"

"Classist? Prejudiced? Disrespectful?" Betty could only nod. "Yep," he agreed, "she did that. But now let me ask you a question."

"Ok."

His face shifted into an instant seriousness that made her tremble―not in a bad way. A smirk pushed up Sweet Pea's cheek as he undoubtedly felt the tremor in her leg. His grip loosened and he brushed his fingers higher, passing her knee.

"Are we going to admit that we're just rambling because we don't know what to do now that we know how good we feel together?"

If her face had been warm a second ago, it was ready to cook bacon now. She felt pleasurably tongue-tied when Sweet Pea took the initiative and put her leg aside to crawl back over her. His mouth went for her neck this time and the skating of his tongue up her skin was an erotic tickle that had Betty raising one bent knee to lean with subtle encouragement against the hips he was, so far, holding at a distance.

"We really gonna do this?" he mumbled into her neck, moving one hand to push her breast up, catching her nipple under the heel.

Panting and getting a good grasp on his longish black hair with one hand, Betty felt around off to the side. When she located the condom, she released his hair (he groaned and sucked her throat) and concentrated on breathing less hard so Sweet Pea would hear the wrapper tear, held between their parallel torsos.

"I'm going to touch you now?" It was supposed to be a statement, but Betty found herself eager to check, eager to please. His dog tags did a comforting slide along her chest as he raised his head to look at her; the metal was practically hot now, warmed by her skin.

"Better let me," Sweet Pea suggested, feeling down her stomach, then jumping his hand up to close around hers. "Otherwise… I mean… your fingers on me right now…"

"Oh, absolutely," Betty agreed, nodding ardently. Something about his words created a severe anticipation to stroke him off that she hadn't felt until he'd said them. "Better to give it at least ten seconds."

Her amusement made her lips tick up on the left; his mirrored hers, lifting on the right. Then, rapidly, Sweet Pea sat back on his heels and rolled the condom on. Betty's lungs were working so hard that her heaving chest just about got in the way of observing him perform this intimate task.

"Ten," she counted for him as he steadily addressed his gaze to the length of her body, tongue probing his cheek from the inside like he wanted to eat her up and could already taste her flavour.

"Nine. Eight." His palms smoothed and rounded her hips, yielded to the gentle poke of her hip bones.

"Se-heven," Betty fumbled when Sweet Pea leaned over her, shoulders rocking like a large cat on the prowl. She caught up with a rushed, "Six."

"Five." He wasn't even trying to be sexy―she thought. She rubbed her inner thigh against his hip. "Four."

"Three." Her heart was revving.

"T―" Sweet Pea grabbed her hand, holding it awkwardly in his haste, and brought it to his dick.

"Couldn't wait," he explained against her lips.

"Mmm," Betty replied, moaning into his mouth while her fingers led him to her entrance.

"Let's hope the next part doesn't end too soon, huh?" he joked, making this the first time Betty had ever been rolling her eyes at the moment her body joined with someone else's.

Her eyes changed direction, aiming for the back of her head and staying there as the sweetest stretch she'd ever known had the reactive muscles of her channel all aflutter.

"Cut it out," he muttered, jerking forward to bore deeper. "Go easy on me, girl."

Betty pursed her lips to control her exhale, trying to calm herself.

"I can't help it," she blissfully complained. "And you sound like you're talking to a horse."

"Well," he started, then clamped his eyes shut as he pulsed ahead inside her, the feel of his throb making her slick, "you can try riding _me_ later. Oh _fuck_ ," Sweet Pea grit out.

"Hey, don't retract your offer before we've even tried it."

"Not that." His hips scooped forward and she watched his jaw open to possibly its maximum. By the feel of it, he'd also filled her to her maximum. "I just pictured it," he explained with a sudden, short laugh, "and I'm trying not to lose my shit."

She wanted desperately to start canting, rubbing her clit through his pitch black hair while his cock knocked her g-spot, but needed to behave. Betty exhaled. Inhaled. She needed to behave for him. His hips circled and she grabbed hold of the sheet beneath her.

"Your pace," Betty promised, sounding as though she'd just crossed the finish line on an Olympic sprint.

Sweet Pea nodded, kissing her hard all of a sudden so that powerful affection ballooned in her chest and up her throat. His hands wiggled under her shoulders until he was wrapped as fully around her as possible while leaving himself room to move. Betty caressed the back of his neck, but her fingers tightened there when Sweet Pea barely pulled out of her before sinking back in. Apparently, his technique wasn't going to be in and out so much as deep and deeper, as though he was afraid the hot, welcoming cavity was going to close up if he wasn't there pushing it open.

The quick, firm thrusts startled Betty, they jostled her, but most of all, they satisfied her, in a wholly physical way. She gave a whimpering cry near Sweet Pea's ear and bit down on the lobe before she could start begging him for more. _God_ , she thought, _who is this girl?_ If this was 'Dark Betty' of family jests and enemy taunts, she wished she could've found her sooner. When her mouth opened to hiccup in some oxygen, words came rushing out, filthy things that seemed to be her surging hormones and tingling nerves communicating without letting her overthinking, perfectionistic mind get in the way.

"You fuck like an animal," curled like scraped honey off her tongue and Betty threaded her fingers more harshly into Sweet Pea's hair.

"God _fucking_ dammit," he panted and rammed into her, grunting through his teeth as he came. His last juts bumped her g-spot, though not enough to deliver another orgasm, but it didn't matter because Betty's body was buzzing and the way Sweet Pea collapsed onto her didn't muffle the feeling.

"I thought you said _my_ pace," he said into the meeting of her neck and collarbone.

"I did let you go at your pace!"

With the clumsy movements of old age or exhaustion, Sweet Pea got himself up on his elbows. Below, she felt him pull out of her.

"You influenced me," he argued, fixing Betty with a reprimanding look.

"That's just… stupid," she settled on, smiling. "It's your fault I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I… I don't know. I _had_ to tell you those things."

Sweet Pea smiled smugly.

"And they are things I will _never_ forget that I heard." He reached down and stripped himself of the spent condom, tying it off and dropping it over the side of the bed. "So I guess I forgive you."

"I didn't ask to be forgiven," Betty pointed out―totally uselessly, evidently, because Sweet Pea ignored her riposte in favour of kissing high up on her chest, letting his chin drag along her skin. "So, the million dollar question," she began, breath jumping when his fingers yanked her nipple. "How was your first time?"

"I don't know yet," he commented, now running his tongue down between her breasts.

"Why not? Are we waiting on the judges' scores?" Betty snapped.

Yeah, she was annoyed. Maybe it wasn't _her_ first time, but it was her first time with him! Going into this knowing that he'd have nothing at all to say about it when it was over would've been discouraging. Actually experiencing it, after the hormonal high of insatiable sexual action, was devastating.

"Because it's not done yet," Sweet Pea replied calmly against her stomach, sounding totally unaffected by her alarm. "What kind of patriarchal relationship do you think this is? Sex doesn't finish when I do. What about you, Betty?"

Betty couldn't think of a single thing to say before he was gathering her thighs in his arms and brushing his lips over her clit. She shook―not subtly―as the fading feelings of pleasure immediately returned, and tucked her arm under a large, floppy pillow, stuffing it beneath her head while she was thoroughly serviced.

For all the speedy bucking of a few minutes ago, it seemed that what Sweet Pea really liked was to go slow. Or at least that's what his tongue was telling her as it dawdled around the underside of her clit, each tender manipulation making Betty's chest swell until she was crying―actually _crying_ ―silent, shallow rivers, feeling things she'd never felt. Never dreamed she could feel. Sure, he was a virgin, hadn't stomped across this base with a girl, but for Betty, his attention earned him the adjective of 'masterful' during those long moments between her thighs. When Sweet Pea's tongue finally snuck into her oversensitive channel, Betty was so gone on the intensity of the ecstasy that she'd forgotten there were other options for his mouth. She came down the length of his tongue when his thumb pressed hard against her clit, and even that didn't stop him from slowly licking her until Betty was certain, if she could've seen for herself, that she shone more with his saliva than with anything else.

With effort, she flung her arms straight out to her sides and let Sweet Pea lay her legs flat. Grinning, he laid down on his side next to her.

" _Now_ it's done," Sweet Pea informed her. "Greatest. Thing. Ever. Please say you're mine for all eternity."

Betty, limp-limbed and palpitating lightly with the aftershock of being greedily slammed into then lovingly tongue-fondled to completion, didn't feel capable of much. But she _could_ nod.

* * *

To be continued...


	8. With Both Eyes on Him

**Author's Note:**

Hopefully a satisfying follow-up for those of you who were wishing for more after the last chapter! I've had a lot of writing on my plate lately, but always, always, always read and appreciate each of your kind comments. Thank you so much for reading what I write.

Enjoy!

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

* * *

VIII

Betty's second ever phone call with Penelope was a complete surprise. They'd worked out a rhythm, Betty thought―months ago now―which allowed them to interact face to face as little as possible. She was rarely even paid in person, simply walking into her office to find a neat, strawberry-red envelope on the left side pillow of the bed where she posed. The rest of the time, the ladies occupied the well-furnished, yet empty-feeling Hall like careless strangers, always just missing each other as they moved between rooms. Betty had assumed they both liked it that way, although, she thought on reflection, maybe that was still the case; the call hadn't been uncharacteristically warm. The main thing she wondered was what sort of business matter would need to be settled over tea, as that was the circumstance in which Penelope intended to continue their chat.

Sometime between feeling her bones re-solidify and showing Sweet Pea to the door of her office (sullied sheet held compactly to the chest of his dirty, donned tank), Betty had gotten his number. It had felt appropriate, if totally out of order for the way she had previously thought things should progress in a relationship. Anyway, it gave her the power to contact him via text, thereby avoiding a potentially overenthusiastic greeting the morning Betty showed up to meet with their boss. At the last second―in fact, while walking the final yards to the driveway―Betty worried that her magnificent little fling was going to be the topic of their discussion. She calmed herself, wiping sweat away from her forehead with her wrist and smelling the rising scent of sunscreen. No way. If she was in that much trouble with Penelope, the woman wouldn't have bothered asking her to come to the house.

"It's going to be _fine_ ," Betty coached herself, and rang the doorbell as she hadn't done for months.

Penelope was her old mixture of well-mannered, sly, and superior, escorting Betty through the most insubstantial of small talk as smoothly as she'd escorted her into the front room. Again, Betty tried to behave well and not chip, drop, or slop tea from her cup, but she did these things for her own sake. This meeting seemed to her much more like a kaffeeklatsch of equals. Perhaps Penelope still had some secrets beyond the sordid details she'd shared (and which Betty heard completely against her will), but now, so did Betty.

The self-possession appeared to unnerve her boss for a few minutes; Betty could see in Penelope's face that she was trying to assess and adapt to this girl, so much more confident than the one she'd hired at the beginning of the summer. Soon, though, her expression became amused and… smug. Betty drank her tea and let the woman get to what she wanted to say in her own time. As always, Penelope ran on a pressed schedule.

"I'm going to be going out of town for a few days, Elizabeth. To visit my sister," she added, though Betty hadn't asked. No, Betty hadn't said a word because if she had, she knew an excited shriek would've been the likeliest response. "It will be next week, when you would normally be working, but due to my imminent departure, I haven't booked anything for you. I have taken several disappointed calls," she said with a conspiratorial smirk, "which makes me feel quite satisfied with your performance, Betty. Quite satisfied indeed."

"Thank you," she replied. Oddly, Betty didn't really care one way or the other. She wasn't proud of herself for what she did for those faceless, voiceless young men, so much as she was proud of herself for what she had done for… herself.

"Now, of course you have your key. Yes?"

"Yes." Betty quickly produced it from the zippered inner pocket of her bag and let it flash in the room's warm light.

"Good. I don't expect you to come in on those days―if you'd like the time off, take it. However, if you did…" Penelope scooted gracefully to the edge of her chair, leaning towards Betty as her voice lowered. "I thought you could keep an eye on the gardener."

Betty choked on her mouthful of tea, feeling it burn right up into her nose as she suppressed a cough.

"The gardener?" she asked hoarsely.

"You see," Penelope confided with serious eyes (for a second, Betty thought she might be getting a glimpse into what it would be like to really have this woman as an ordinary relative), "I can't offer him the time away that I'm offering you, otherwise the grounds would look a mess by the time I returned. It's so much work that I really need someone to stay on top of it, and I haven't had a chance to look into a professional landscaper for the fall when this Serpent boy has gone back to school, which is something I might ask my sister about, actually…"

Her mouth turned down as she folded herself deep inside her own thoughts.

"Um, Mrs. Blossom?" Betty pushed, feeling herself begin to get sleepy in the quiet.

"Anyway," Penelope recalled herself, "I'm willing to pay you for… a little security."

"Security?"

"Very, _very_ little," her boss assured her. "The nature of my business prevents me from installing cameras, as identities must be protected, which is where you'd come in. You would only be making sure the gardener knew someone was at the house, so that he wouldn't slack off, or attempt to abscond with god knows what. Does that interest you?" Betty opened her mouth to answer, but Penelope seemed to think she needed extra convincing. "I know it must also be difficult to be at home right now. Your father…" She trailed off tragically. _Well_ , Betty thought, _might as well let her think that was the thing that persuaded me_.

She gave Penelope a suitably beat down look and nodded.

"Yes, watching the house wouldn't be a problem. Thank you for letting me know ahead of time."

"Excellent," Penelope commended with a gratified smile. "I feel better leaving Thicket Hall in your responsible hands, Elizabeth."

"My pleasure," Betty demurely replied.

* * *

"YO, COOPER! GET THOSE RESPONSIBLE HANDS IN HERE AND HELP!"

Betty rolled her eyes and got to her feet, leaving a patch of emerald grass imprinted with the shape of her backside and crossed legs.

"You know," she began, leaning against the doorway of the shed as she watched Sweet Pea wrestle a majorly crimped hose down from a shelf, "the reason I told you she said that was so we could laugh about it together, not so you could use it to make me do things for you."

"Believe me," he huffed, "I'd love to get you to do other things for me―also involving those hands―but unlike you, _I_ can't slack off this week. That bitch'll notice if the grass is an extra quarter inch tall, trust me."

Betty sighed and moved to help. Experience had taught her that Sweet Pea's irritation level and the foulness of his language were inextricably linked.

"Don't call her that," she half-heartedly reprimanded, trying to keep her sandal-clad feet out of the path of her lover's clumpy work boots.

"Sorry," he groaned, then quickly pushed Betty back, his palm flat to her stomach, as the hose came tumbling to the floor. "Satan's mistress." He snuck a mischievous sideways look at her.

"Nice compromise," Betty decided, laughing. Sweet Pea swiftly kissed her ear before hefting the rolled hose and striding out the door. "Seriously though," she went on. "Won't you have time to do anything besides garden?"

Betty jogged ahead until she could look Sweet Pea in the eye, walking backwards in advance of his one-man, hose-bearing procession. She pointed an accusing finger.

"You certainly had time before. All those afternoons you tiptoed up to my room to spy―"

"I did not 'tiptoe,'" he complained, tossing the hose to the ground beside the faucet at the side of the house, "I just have quiet feet."

"Well, whatever it is you were doing, do you think you could do it again? Please? We're finally home alone," she coaxed, giving him a seductive smirk as he stepped past her to twist the hose onto the faucet.

"Maybe after this." And Sweet Pea peeled his shirt over his head, wiping the balled cotton across his forehead before letting it drop to the lawn.

"Oh, _come on_ ," Betty groaned, staring at his body. It was torture. He had just enough humanity in him to give her a smile.

"Why don't you start straightening out the hose, help the job get done faster."

"Because I'm so good with hose-shaped things?" she said snarkily, tightening her ponytail and beginning to work on the pinched places in the rubber.

"I was going to say because you seem to be a natural with kinks, but what you said is good too."

The sunscreen she wore was so strong that when Betty blushed, her face actually returned to its normal colour.

"And what does this situation say about you?" she teased back, still fixing the hose. "That you let me do all the work?"

"That is a lie! No matter what you're referring to," Sweet Pea argued, crossing his arms.

"Yeah," she allowed with a shrug, "I guess you got the hose out and connected it, but the rest is up to me."

It was a combination of her focus and her gardening companion's long stride that left Betty unprepared for the water to suddenly be turned on full blast.

"Then I might as well get you wet," he shouted over the sudden spurt.

With a shriek, she dropped the hose, which continued to untwist on the grass, spraying her legs―to match her top half, she supposed, which had been soaked by the initial jet. She tried to retreat, feet slipping around in her sandals, but Sweet Pea grabbed her and hauled her over his shoulder, dangling her head near the blasting end of the hose so that Betty had to block her face with her arms. Struggling wasn't doing anything but making her shirt slide up, trapped between them―the answer was to adjust her weight just enough to send Sweet Pea teetering forward, hugging her body to his chest. From there, it was easy to kiss him hard.

Her plan had been a short distraction followed by a break for freedom, but now that he'd given up his childish game of tormenting her with the hose, Betty wasn't ready to be out of his arms. She wrapped her legs around him, feeling his large hand creep up the leg hole of her loose denim shorts to seize her ass. He was stiffening against her as she fought her way out of her sopping t-shirt, breaking their kiss to squeeze some of its water into his face. Sweet Pea snorted, lowering her to the ground as he rubbed at his face.

"You got it up my nose," he griped.

Betty caught her ponytail in the shirt, wringing out her hair as best she could with wet material. Very aware of standing out in the open in her bra.

"You're spending too much time here away from the Serpents, Sweet Pea. I think you've gone soft."

As soon as the words were out, the two of them did the same automatic glance down to Sweet Pea's crotch.

"Oh," Betty giggled, "no, that's not what I―"

But he'd grabbed the end of the hose and pointed it in her direction. Putting both hands up in self-defence, Betty screamed in what was truthfully pure joy. She enjoyed it for a minute, the slosh of the water and Sweet Pea's laugh behind that, then stumbled to the faucet and turned the water off.

"Poor baby," Sweet Pea said with an obnoxiously fake pout as Betty faced him, holding her arms away from her body and flicking her wrists to encourage the water to drain off.

"I can't believe Penelope was right about you," she said sadly, until a smile forced its way out. "You are definitely troub―"

Sweet Pea folded his arms around her, causing her feet to leave the ground as he leaned back. It made her breathless―either from his hold around her ribs or the way his tongue stole into her mouth―and she inhaled fast through her nose, becoming pleasantly dizzy.

"Let's go," he said against her lips, setting her down. "You're going to get burnt out here."

He tugged the sodden shirt out of her hand and slung it over his shoulder; it hit his bare back with a wet slap. To reciprocate, Betty went to retrieve _his_ shirt, but Sweet Pea held up a finger to stop her.

"Don't you dare. I like my clothes _dry_."

She _tsk_ ed and took off her sandals, as her feet were sliding in them too much for them to be bearable for walking.

"You wanna go up to my office?" she offered, gaze running over Sweet Pea's torso. The wet-haired, no-shirted, work-booted thing was really doing something for her.

He smirked.

"Why don't you come into mine?"

* * *

Betty didn't pretend. He liked that. She was into him and she let him know it (that look in her eye like they were in this together). She let him hustle her backwards and up onto a workbench in the shed and when he nudged his crotch forward, she let him hear it (that honest moan). She took his hands, moved them to her boobs, and she let him feel them (even though he hadn't taken the removal of her shirt as an automatic green light). That shirt was a wet lump on the floor.

These days, his fantasies of her were a total mixed bag, but this, this right here, was definitely one of them. It was only getting better when Betty sucked his lip and reached between them to unbutton her shorts. Her skin was wet everywhere he touched and it made him want to take her to the beach or run through a sprinkler with her, like kids were always doing in movies; he bet that was the kind of childhood she'd had, this perfect creature. He flinched when he felt her knuckles skim the skin of his abdomen, fingers confident on the fastening of his jeans. Kissing her temple, Sweet Pea glanced down, breathing heavily against Betty's cheek, and watched her ease her hand into the front of his goddamn jeans, shaping her fingers to him on the outside of his boxers. He rolled his hips, gripping hard at the workbench with Betty's first gentle stroke.

"We should talk about what's gonna happen soon," Sweet Pea babbled to distract himself, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt at composure. "Summer's almost over."

"Right now?" Betty asked, giving him those wide green eyes before she scooted forward and kissed his chest, the hand not massaging his dick tracing delicately over his abs.

"Maybe just to say…" He gulped air, head twitching involuntarily as her tongue ran across his skin. "That things are gonna be fine. Because we're solid."

"Ok, Sweet Pea," she conceded huskily (his hips jerked forward, her hold getting tight as he swelled in her hand). "Things are going to be fine. We're solid."

He nuzzled his nose into her damp hair―she smelt like herself, plus the great outdoors. It was amazingly soothing.

"You want me to remind you _how_ solid?" he murmured into her ear.

Betty shivered and stood when Sweet Pea grabbed her ass and pulled her towards him. It was easier to see the way her heart beat hard when he was close to her like this, since she wasn't wearing a shirt, but instead of working his height advantage, he instinctively dropped to his knees in front of her. The water left on her drying legs was not much more than mist on his palms as he stroked up from her ankles, dick straining between his legs. He pinched the neat, sewn hems of her shorts (clearly, nobody had ever taught this Northsider how to make her own cut-offs) and wriggled them down until they dropped to the floor on their own. Sweet Pea pressed his mouth and nose to Betty's pale blue underwear with a worshipful sigh. Her hands fell heavily on his shoulders.

Very carefully, checking her eyes before his teeth came together, Sweet Pea nipped just above the upper band of her panties; Betty sunk her fingers deep into his hair and held fast. He could've given himself a shake, maybe smacked his head into the wall a few times to make sure this really _wasn't_ a fantasy. Instead, Sweet Pea put cotton between his teeth and tugged downward. Betty took care of the bra herself, also stepping out of her lowered underwear with a grace that did not surprise him, but did spur him to get closer to her. Meaning, to get certain parts of him closer to certain parts of her. Because, _hell_.

His legs were shaking as he stood, but his hands were steady. He wedged one of those between her legs, fitting his fingers snugly to lay flat against her opening, then put his cheek to her stomach, dragging all the way up her body as he just _breathed_ her. Betty let out a shuddering sound that turned Sweet Pea right the fuck inside out, claiming that noise for himself by pressing his lips hurriedly and soundly to hers.

He held her still―his hand clamped around her upper arm―as he kissed her, getting the most lightheaded he'd been since seeing all that blood pour out of Fangs. As soon as he stopped to breathe, they stumbled together as though they'd just been thawed, Sweet Pea taking his gooey fingers away from the hot place between her thighs to shove his boxers down just far enough to free his dick. Without asking if he had something, Betty stuck her hands in his pockets and fished out a condom; apparently it was getting as hard to leave home without one in his pocket as it would be to leave without his tattoo on his neck. Lifting her quickly by the backs of her thighs complicated her task of rolling it on him, but the _whoop_ sound (followed by a giggle) she made when he did it meant it was worth it. He smiled until he gasped, Betty's hand lingering to tense around his cock. This fucking girl.

It felt too good having her up in his arms, fully supported by him, to bother taking her back to the workbench. Besides that, any kind of grand sweep to clear the clutter from its surface would probably send a rusty old gardening tool flying to either stab through the top of Betty's foot or cut Sweet Pea's junk off. Pass.

So he forced her into the wall, fingers kneading the undersides of her thighs as his erection alone probed for the soft spot it was dying to go home to. And oh, what a happy reunion it was as Sweet Pea filled Betty in one slow, strong stroke, no stopping. A personal high point for him (which he screamed at himself inside his head to remember for later) was when Betty full-on cried out, apparently not realizing he had a little bit more to offer her. He stepped close, really pinning her in place, and gave her a swift thrust like he was testing their fit. Betty quaked and folded her arms around his neck and shoulder, pressing a gasping mouth to his throat.

Bouncing her fast and hard made Sweet Pea shut his eyes tight, the sound of both of them breathing like two out-of-sync rhythmic lines on the same song. Betty's leg wrapped around him. It drove him insane to feel her use it to pull him closer. It felt demanding and he wondered where the fuck she got the balls to pull that kind of a power move on him while he was nailing her into the wall―surely through the wall by now, if the crappy shed hadn't been built with rich people money, old but sturdy. Like Toni's grandpa. Which was _not_ what he wanted to be thinking about.

Sweet Pea opened his eyes to re-center. His girl―wet from the hose and maybe sweat too, his and hers―whimpered hungrily right before he felt her hand against his stomach, heading south to rub her clit. He nearly dropped her.

"Jesus Christ, baby," he choked into her dishevelled blonde hair.

" _Sweet Pea_ ," she keened, arching her back and constricting her leg around him to put more force in the rock of her hips.

Keeping one hand under her leg, Sweet Pea caressed the other greedily up over her ass. He gave her a stinging spank before gliding his palm higher, into the shallow depression of her lower back, then climbing the ladder of her spine―one bumpy bone for every time he drilled into her.

"Uhhh, _god_ ," Betty groaned, taking his face in both her hands and kissing him fiercely.

It slowed his pace, but there was too much momentum, too much pressure not to get just as much pleasure now from the deliberate swing of her hips down, and his up. Sweet Pea dug his fingers into her back, feeling Betty tremble as she came, and rode through it with her. His orgasm was mighty, but later what he remembered was wanting to hold her tighter. And tighter. And tighter.

* * *

To be continued...


	9. Strew

**Author's Note:**

First off, I'm posting this chapter only five days after the last one, so make sure you read chapter 8 before starting here. Second, yes, this is the final chapter of _Cometh the Rose_. Immediately after my last update, I saw the end of August looming. As I also explained on Tumblr (where you can find me as forasecondtherewedwon), this is a summer story. It felt wrong to let it continue into September, which always feels like fall as soon as the calendar flips. I didn't alter or condense the plot in any way to meet this deadline; it was always going to end here.

As always, please enjoy.

XO ForASecondThereWe'dWon

* * *

IX

Going back to work was hard for Betty, even though she hadn't actually passed her 'time off' away from the premises. The challenge was in seeing the Hall once more as an office when she'd spent the last three days enjoying it as a private haven, shared with just one other person. She hadn't decided yet whether or not she'd tell Penelope that she'd been here. The task offered to her ("keep an eye on the gardener") had been too easy. It felt like taking money under false pretenses, and as much as Betty didn't care for her employer, she did want to honour her own ethics. After all, what had gotten her through these shifts, week after week, month after month? Integrity.

She wondered, idly flipping the pages of a magazine and listening to the soft scrape of a patron drawing a chair up to her little window and sliding it open, if she would be replaced when she went back to school in a week. It was unlikely that Penelope would pressure her to stay on, with the long trek to the Hall and the slim chance that she wouldn't be missed by her friends after class and on weekends, once they'd quit their own minimum wage stints. Working for Penelope was like belonging to a secret society (Betty imagined), except they actually let you leave. And there was a cute gardener.

While she'd learned to build up a tolerance for posing like a living statue―the perfect sculpture Penelope wanted her to be―today, Betty was feeling a bit too human to play the part as flawlessly as she had in the past. Her muscles were stiff, cramped in some places and aching from overextension in others. She had thought that work would be a good place to rest and recover from that soreness, but the longer she sat in silence, fingers brushing glossy pages, the more the pervasive tenderness irritated her. Eyes darting as she listened for any change in her hallway visitor, Betty moved, slowly and steadily, until she was sitting upright. Leaving the magazine where it was on the white field of cotton, she closed her eyes and gradually rolled her shoulders, then relaxed. Her back was fully facing the hatch.

There was a sudden scuffle.

Two noises: the chair and the watcher. Because Betty didn't know him, she was unable to confidently categorize the sound he'd made, but he was definitely leaving. She frowned, eyes roaming the opposite wall as she listened hard. He seemed to be… gone.

Betty glanced over her shoulder quickly and saw the little brass-edged window, still open. Thoughts about what the guy's problem was (late for something? Overwhelmed by sudden disgust at himself for staring at a naked girl? Left the stove on?) were suppressed by a greater question. Should she shut the hatch? That tiny space ruled her entire job, and the right to its management had never once been under her control. She snuck another look. The boy might come right back―maybe he'd just had to run to the bathroom―and if she was up when he returned, he would see her face, leading to innumerable repercussions. If Betty stayed put, one of Penelope's clients (an adult) could peer in at her, which was a consideration that truly made her skin crawl. Caught between her choices, she finally sat completely still.

Paralyzed.

* * *

 _No_ , Penelope thought. _No_.

It was her favourite word, always had been. She didn't believe any pleasure was perverse, though the immense enjoyment she felt when handing down a rejection or disappointment or forbiddance from up on her high horse was exactly the kind of self-indulgence other people loved to criticize. 'No' was power and immeasurable satisfaction.

Most of the time.

What the word was never supposed to do was to pass her lips in a tone of doubt, but the disbelief was growing in her mind, betrayal pushing at the limits of her thoughts like a rising soufflé. And the _shame_ , the shame of hearing of such a thing from one of the Hall's clients. It was shocking. Clearly, she'd become complacent. Her loneliness had made her weak, more trusting than she should have been. Betty should never have been considered as anything more than an employee. Never a protégé.

With the utmost politeness, Penelope dismissed the unsettled young man―letting him think it was a warm goodbye instead. As soon as the front door had closed behind him, she strode to the staircase. _Unacceptable_ , she ruled as she climbed. The youth was the second patron she'd had to eject today (after so many months of operation without a hiccup!), the first having been the client she was entertaining. Betty's patron had had the nerve, the pure self-entitled _nerve_ , to interrupt Penelope's intimate session, so great had his disgruntlement been. Pathetic. The worst of it had been making herself decent after the young man's knock; what an awful lot of knots to untie. Literally.

And only her first day back! Penelope turned sharply down the upstairs hall. Visiting family was never a joy, which meant it had been three days pining for the calm, ornate serenity of the building that was finally beginning to look and function as home. Three days wanting to drink her own tea. Three days longing for both her beds, the public as well as the private. Three days envying Betty this refined, glorious, bedecked and bedraped sanctuary. And all the while… Hmph. To think, Penelope had expected the young Serpent to be the snake.

She clipped down hardwood so slick that clients were often beyond resisting trying to use the reflection to see up her skirt or robe. Holding her chin up, Penelope clasped her hands ponderously together, pushing at the spaces between the fingers of the glove she always wore. Keeping it snug. Perhaps the foolish boy had been mistaken. In that case, Betty would forgive the intrusion―be forced to forgive it. After all, this was Penelope's house and place of business. She could go where she liked, inspect where she felt she ought. Do what she saw fit.

Halting abruptly at the door to the room she'd assigned Betty Cooper months ago, Penelope glanced fleetingly back and forth (feeling, oddly, as though she was prying) before bending slightly to align her gaze with the hatch. It seemed incredibly taboo to be taking advantage of the peephole, to be putting herself on the other side of things, but her sense of the uncanny was almost immediately trampled by her anger.

"No," Penelope hissed aloud, releasing the word like an airborne toxin, teeth only clenching more firmly when she witnessed Betty's back go rigid. That perfect canvas, marred by scattered red scratches.

* * *

Sweet Pea wanted to take his tank off so fucking badly. Finally, after weeks and weeks of inconsistent sunscreen application that had left him with dorky dad-ish tan lines, he'd had three days of being able to go shirtless without worrying that he was breaking some kind of Thicket Hall dress code and even out that sun-kissed glow. What a goddamn pain it was trying to adjust back into fully-clothed life. What an even bigger pain it was that Betty wasn't out here to do it with him. Except that she didn't have to adjust to a damn thing. Naked outside, naked inside. Not a hell of a lot of difference, as far as Sweet Pea was concerned. Although, he was hoping she was missing being naked with _him_. He was about as convinced as a guy could be that Betty was as nuts for him as he was for her now―there just hadn't been a ton of time to discuss it, what with all the condoms he'd had burning holes in his pockets. And his wallet. And his backpack. He knew his fucking priorities.

The yard was full of hotspots now―corners, and dips, and places in the shade that jogged his memory. It was almost impossible to walk into the shed without starting to get hard; he'd left his backpack way out at the front, near the driveway, to reduce the number of potential trips into the shed. Sweet Pea wanted to hang around that area by the wall, instead of darting in and out of the building, carrying armfuls of whatever he thought he might need: bags of soil, rolls of twine, handheld spades. Self-preservation. If he let himself loiter at all within those wooden walls, he knew he'd need to be there for a while. Somehow, that stupid shed wasn't so crappy-looking to him anymore.

Betty had also offered him a newfound appreciation for Penelope Blossom's lawn furniture; an afternoon of eating their lunch above the grass for once had become far more interesting than playing house when Betty had moved from her bench to his and climbed into his lap. He'd been wanting to feel her like that from the first time they were together in her office. Forgetting all about trying to keep her under the shade of the oversized umbrella, Sweet Pea had welcomed her into his more exposed position, pushing up her shirt to bury his face in her chest, then pushing up her skirt to bury the rest of him. When he'd squeezed his eyes shut, fingers ruining her soft ponytail, the sun had lit up his eyelids. Bright red.

Having her yank him behind a tree to go at it again. Pressing her back among the roses as his fingers wiggled into her peach-coloured underwear. It was all magic to him. The safest and most dangerous summer Sweet Pea had ever had. The scent of Betty, her sweat like a drug―the only one he's ever tried (except for the time he'd bought really bad pot from Tall Boy), palette clear for that addiction. Man, he wasn't going to be the same after this. Couldn't be. Even now, it was tough to do his work as well as he had in the past. Sweet Pea had thought this place was his when he'd started. His private kingdom. Turned out, it was hers.

Some spots out here were just spots where he'd spent time with her. The way Betty loved the flowers made his heart sing in a disgusting Mary Poppins kind of way, but he hadn't tried to hide his smile from his girl. They were dying now, white roses turning brown and wilting all around him. It was actually kind of incredible how something that took so long to work itself up into blooming could fade so fast. Sweet Pea grabbed a couple really pristine (yes, dying, but pristine) ones as he worked, stuffing them in his pockets as carefully as he could. He didn't know what he was going to do with them. Luckily, act first, think later had worked for him like 95% of the time. Better just to grab some when the opportunity presented itself. Asking Penelope wasn't an option. She'd forbidden him (fucking _forbidden_ him―Sweet Pea rolled his eyes as he recalled it) from picking her flowers while they bloomed. Taking the dead ones probably wouldn't be allowed either. Well, fuck her. He'd be out of here in a week anyway.

Over the drone of cicadas (that buzz that always made the heat feel more intense), Sweet Pea heard other noises, noises that didn't just entice him to eavesdrop, but to get up off his knees and listen harder. A door slamming… maybe? Something was going on today, beyond two cars driving off within minutes of each other, which Sweet Pea had vaguely been aware of a little earlier. A raised voice or voices? When the one got suddenly louder, he figured the front door must be open, and he began to walk slowly around the side of the house, curious. When the sharp voice said, "Elizabeth," well, he fucking ran.

* * *

Feeling so much in such a short span of time had Betty burning from the inside out―skin and face and pride on fire. Penelope's gasp and the way she'd slammed the hatch closed had made Betty race around her office redressing and collecting her things. It reminded her so much of how she'd used to react to her mother's car pulling into the driveway (having to speed-clean her room; a task she always neglected until the last second) that a Blossom blood connection between Penelope and Alice seemed much more likely than between Penelope and Hal.

Unfortunately for Penelope, Betty had no inducement to submit to her harsh words. This wasn't a woman she loved or needed to tolerate for another second. It had been a surprise exactly _what_ Penelope was yelling at her about as she pushed past her into the hallway; Betty really hadn't had a clue about the marks her employer had found on her back though she, unlike Penelope, did know where they'd come from.

Being trailed down the staircase by an alternately livid rage and quiet radiation of fury gave Betty a glimpse into what Cheryl had lived with pre-emancipation. Betty had always managed to forgive the girl her little pointless cruelties, but now she could really understand the reason behind them. Apparently, the guy who'd been observing her had noticed the 'hideous scratches' (her boss's phrasing) and run straight to Penelope. From the severity of her so-called 'treachery,' Betty wondered what she could possibly have done to top this. Or maybe there was no limit to the hidden stores of Penelope's irritation, hoarded and admired like her art collection. That harried walk from the office to the front door made Betty realize she'd never had a 'darkness.' Anxiety, depression, repressed longings? Yes, yes, and yes. But nothing like what seemed to be propelling Penelope.

"My one relief is that I paid you _before_ I left, Elizabeth. I owe you nothing," her employer snapped at her, though Betty had yet to say a single word. "Had there been a formal contract, I would be pursuing legal action against you."

"Except there wasn't," Betty said emphatically, turning on the front step to confront the woman. "It was a choice you made to protect yourself." She shrugged. "You really can't be anything less than satisfied."

"Satisfied?! You were supposed to be mine for another week!"

" _Yours?_ " Betty stared at her incredulously until Sweet Pea came running around the corner.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked, not pushing in front of Betty, but standing at her side.

"Not you too." Penelope rolled her eyes. "Must all my staff give me trouble on the same day?" The pair ignored this. "It's none of your business," she informed Sweet Pea.

"We'll fucking see about that," he growled at her. Betty grabbed his wrist.

"Well, do you want to show him, Elizabeth?" Penelope taunted. "Let him in on the reason you're here… and why you're leaving with such a scene?"

"He already knows," she said, mouth shifting into an easy smile as she reached around and tugged the back of her tank top down. Sweet Pea leaned back to see and started laughing, causing Penelope to look her most affronted yet.

"I'm not surprised this is a joke to you, Serpent. She's just been fired for marring skin that could've made the both of us a great deal of money."

"First of all," Sweet Pea cut in with a frown, "I 'marred' that skin myself, thank you very much. Second of all…" He raised his hand and flipped her the middle finger. Betty's cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling. " _Third_ of all―"

"Third of all," Betty picked up, "this is actually me quitting. Thank you," she added honestly, watching Penelope's face change in shock, "for this opportunity. I got a lot out of it and it's time for me to move on."

She looked at Sweet Pea who gave her a little _ok then_ half-shrug and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they turned away from the Hall.

"Nobody puts Betty in a corner," he shouted back at Penelope. Betty didn't look, just heard the heavy door thud closed.

"Was that necessary?" she asked Sweet Pea.

"I don't know," he replied, looking up at the blue sky, "but it felt good."

"Do you have to go back and get your stuff?" She didn't bother insulting him by feeling guilty over the way her own exit had basically caused his. He'd clearly made his choice.

Sweet Pea pointed at the dark lump of his backpack alongside the driveway, swinging it onto his back when they reached it.

"Hey," he started, "maybe we could head to the Southside. Have lunch with my friends."

"That sounds great," she said, giving him an eager smile as an extremely pleased one graced his face.

"I don't know the bus schedule for this time of day," Sweet Pea commented as they turned onto the road, though there was quite a stretch ahead of them before they'd hit a bus stop.

"That's ok," Betty assured him, hitching her bag up on her shoulder before taking his hand. "I don't mind the walk."


End file.
